


Fraternité

by bobbiewickham



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-20
Updated: 2013-07-21
Packaged: 2017-11-29 21:42:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 46,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/691777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bobbiewickham/pseuds/bobbiewickham
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Les Amis de l'ABC, at the beginning and the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Bahorel

_**Bahorel, 1832**_

Bahorel was dead. 

In the Corinthe, Enjolras clasped Combeferre's hand tightly. 

Bahorel was dead, and Enjolras was not surprised. This was Bahorel. Always the first into any fight, whether at a barricade or a brawl. 

They all should have expected such an outcome. They did expect it. But expectation did not blunt the edge of grief. Enjolras could see it in the drawn face of Courfeyrac, could hear it in the forced wit of Bossuet. They expected it but somehow thought it would never come. Surely, of all of them, Bahorel was too vivid to ever be snuffed out. He had been throwing himself into danger for more than ten years--but one did not become impervious to death through prolonged exposure.

Enjolras raised his face to the ceiling, as if he would find answers or solace there, but the only solace came from the returning pressure of Combeferre's hand. Bahorel was singular. He followed Enjolras faithfully, when following was necessary. Otherwise, though, Bahorel treated Enjolras with all the disdainful affection of an elder brother for a younger one. There was a comfort in the way Bahorel would unceremoniously rumple Enjolras's hair or pull him into a bearish embrace, in the rough good humor that always shone through his smile. 

Enjolras had seen good citizens die on the barricades of 1830 and in various émeutes, but none of the dearest to him amongst Les Amis de l'ABC. 

He felt Combeferre's hand slide out of his, and press his shoulder. 

Bahorel would kick him for being morose. Enjolras raised his chin, and began taking a roll call, to see who was killed or wounded or taken. 

***

_**Bahorel, 1825**_

"Do you want to stop and rest?" Enjolras asked a red-faced, sweating Combeferre, an hour into their practice boxing session. 

"No," said Combeferre, breathing hard, "I can keep going." 

Enjolras raised his eyebrows. "There is no shame in resting, should you need to." 

Combeferre glowered at him, and Enjolras suppressed a smile. Combeferre's thirst for learning was great enough to encompass activities he did not find pleasurable, which was why he had asked Enjolras to teach him to fight. Enjolras loved Combeferre for innumerable reasons, but admired him most for that rare courage, that staunch insistence on seeking out what he did not know, no matter how discomfiting it was. 

"I can keep going, Enjolras." Combeferre flung a semi-competent kick at him. It showed improvement from the way he had kicked at the start, but...all the same, it was rather endearing. 

Enjolras demonstrated the proper form again. As Combeferre repeated the movement, Enjolras could not help noticing, out of the corner of his eye, two other men fighting in another corner of the club. They were particularly energetic and skilled--that much was obvious, even from Enjolras's vantage point. 

Enjolras was distracted enough by the sight of the other men that Combeferre actually landed a blow on his ear. "My apologies," Combeferre said, looking a bit smug. Enjolras drew his attention back to their practicing. They kicked and blocked for another hour, losing track of the time, before deciding to halt. 

When he and Combeferre finished, Enjolras looked up to see the two men who had been fighting so ferociously in the other part of the club. They were both large and dark-haired. One had a wide grin and a nose that obviously had been broken at least once. The other had a ruddy complexion and a slightly melancholy air. 

"My name is Bahorel," said the grinning man, to a panting Combeferre, "and if I may say so, you're doing much better. Your first time, hmm?"

"Yes," said Combeferre with a wry twist to his mouth. "As I am sure is obvious." 

Bahorel's grin grew even wider, if that was possible. "Don't worry about that! I looked an utter fool the first time I tried boxing. Tripped over my opponent's foot and nearly fell on my face. No, my friend, compared to most you looked as graceful as a swan. And you'll keep improving, never fear..." Studying Bahorel as he kept speaking, Enjolras felt sure the other man's first time boxing occurred when Bahorel was no more than eight years old. But Bahorel was tactfully silent on that point. 

Enjolras immediately liked him for that. Combeferre, with his mighty intellect, was unused to any difficulties in learning a new skill. While that would never deter him, it might bruise his feelings. It was good of Bahorel to offer encouragement. Enjolras smiled at him in quiet thanks. 

The ruddy-faced man was looking oddly at Enjolras. "I am Enjolras, and my friend is Combeferre," he said, extending his hand to the other man. "And your name, citizen?" 

"Grantaire," the man said, taking Enjolras's hand uncertainly. 

Bahorel turned to look at his companion. "Are you well, Grantaire, or did I show too little mercy in thrashing you? You look positively dazed, my dear fellow." 

Grantaire forced a smile. "I will not admit defeat or weakness, but I confess I feel a bit wobbly. Perhaps it is simply that I have not eaten yet." He turned back to Enjolras and Combeferre. "You are students?" 

"Yes," Combeferre said. "I study medicine, and Enjolras studies law." 

"I also study law," Bahorel said, "in a manner of speaking." 

"What manner is that?" Enjolras asked, amused. 

"I have been studying for eight years, and have yet to either pass the bar or attend more than thirty classes since I began my studies," Bahorel said with a twinkle. "I have more pressing matters to occupy myself with." 

"I am an art student," Grantaire said, "also in a manner of speaking, though my pressing matters are more beautiful than Bahorel's, I think." 

"That," Bahorel said cheerily, "is a matter of opinion." 

They all went to a café afterwards and, after some careful probing to ascertain the political views of Combeferre and Enjolras, Bahorel revealed his own. His politics were sympathetic, his rhetoric both fiery and amusing, and his passion infectious. 

"I am a true republican in all respects," he had said. "I have a proper social contract with my mistress, in which neither of us dictates, or is dictated to---why give old Charles X powers that I will not give to the woman I love? He is surely not as pleasing or amiable." 

"And you, Grantaire?" Combeferre asked, probably out of caution--they were all freely discussing politics, and yet Grantaire had remained silent the whole time, his eyes on his wineglass. Surely Bahorel would not speak so openly before Grantaire if the other man were untrustworthy, but Combeferre would want to question Grantaire himself. "What are your opinions?" 

"I have none," Grantaire said, blithely. "I believe in a full glass, but nothing beyond that." Combeferre exchanged a glance with Enjolras, who could not help feeling...disappointed, somehow. Surely a man who had fought Bahorel with such vigor was capable of more than apathy? 

"I have tried and failed to inspire Grantaire with political conviction," said Bahorel with his characteristic smile, "but he makes an excellent drinking companion." 

Bahorel was already a veteran in the cause that Combeferre and Enjolras were just beginning to fight for rather than simply speak of. They had been working steadily with a handful of other students of their acquaintance, distributing pamphlets and discussing laws and meeting with sympathizers. But Bahorel was older than they, and had done more, although he was cautiously vague about what exactly his involvement was, and absolutely silent as to with _whom_ he was involved. That was all to the good: it would not benefit Enjolras or Combeferre, or their friends, to have any ties with Bahorel if he were indiscreet. But he was nothing of the sort, and there was clearly much to learn from him. Enjolras could see from a glance at Combeferre that his friend was even more eager for Bahorel's knowledge than Enjolras himself--and, perhaps, Bahorel could introduce them to other circles of like minds. 

That proved to be the case, but only after Bahorel made his own unique sort of preliminary investigations.

It was late in the evening, two weeks after Bahorel first met them. Enjolras and Combeferre both had lectures to attend the next morning. So, in theory, did Bahorel, but he thought lectures were for other people with duller lives, and he invited Enjolras and Combeferre to join him for a meal at one of his favorite haunts. They were both too curious to know Bahorel better to decline. 

The evening was pleasant enough until Bahorel overheard another patron express the opinion that the Anti-Sacrilege Act was too soft on blasphemers. 

Bahorel called out a response that was eloquent, incisive, and blisteringly profane. 

The pious patron came over, shouted some invectives about Bahorel's sexual predilections and his mother's chastity, and then took a drunken swing at Bahorel himself. 

Combeferre, who was sitting next to Bahorel, lunged forward, caught their pious attacker's wrist, and tugged hard downwards on his arm. Unfortunately Combeferre did not know what to do next. The anti-blasphemer took advantage of Combeferre's hesitation and punched him. Combeferre blocked the punch so it glanced off his shoulder instead of smashing into his jaw, but the blow still sent him reeling backwards. 

Enjolras grabbed Combeferre and steadied him, while Bahorel pounced on the attacker--and the attacker's gang of friends, who had decided to come to his aid. Enjolras counted ten...no, eleven. Most were drunk, but all were large. 

The situation did not look promising. 

Enjolras jumped into the fray, pulling one man away from Bahorel and throwing him to the ground. He turned back to the next attacker, punching him in the throat. In his side vision, he saw Combeferre charging in, a large table lifted up in his hands. Four of the gang fell away from Bahorel as Combeferre blocked them with the table. 

Bahorel, for his part, had picked up a chair and was swinging it around merrily, keeping five men at bay. But how long would that last? 

Enjolras and Combeferre looked at each other briefly, and came to a joint wordless decision that, in this particular circumstance, discretion was the better part of valor. Combeferre shoved the table he was still holding up into the faces of the four men he had been fending off. Enjolras brought down the rather vicious man he was fighting, kicking him in the head, and then rushed over to Combeferre's side to deal with one of the four who had risen again and was very angry at having his nose bloodied by a table leg. 

Once that was accomplished, Enjolras and Combeferre each seized one of Bahorel's arms, pushed through a gap between his opponents, and made for the door, Enjolras pausing only briefly to stuff some money into the hands of the proprietor, who was lounging idly against the wall and watching the fight with detached curiosity. 

They ran out onto the street and kept running until they reached an alley some distance away, where they paused to regain their breath. Enjolras regarded his companions. Combeferre looked calm and collected, as usual. Bahorel, of course, was grinning. 

"Do you think..." Combeferre began, laying a hand on Enjolras's arm. He _looked_ at Enjolras very eloquently. Only Combeferre could communicate so much with a look. Sometimes Enjolras forgot they had known each other only a year. 

"If I understand you correctly," Enjolras said, "then I think you are right." 

Bahorel eyed them curiously. Enjolras decided to be frank. "Bahorel, you arranged that disturbance, did you not?" 

Bahorel merely raised his eyebrows in response. 

"That very Catholic man, and the defenders who came to his aid," Combeferre pressed, "they were your friends, or are we mistaken? You wanted to test our...abilities, I suppose." 

"No," Bahorel said, giving up all pretense. "Not your abilities. I already know Enjolras knows how to throw a punch, and you..." 

"Do not," finished Combeferre with a slight smile. 

"And you are _learning_ ," Bahorel corrected. "I don't care about your abilities. I care about your spirit. Will you enter a fight where you are vastly outnumbered, a fight that need not concern you at all, in order to defend a friend of only two weeks' acquaintance? A friend who picked the fight himself out of his own bad temper? I could have kept my mouth shut, after all, instead of rising to the bait of a stranger's political rant. You would have been justified in letting me lie in the grave I dug for myself. But I had to know, would you come to my aid anyway? If your answer to this question was 'no,' then I would still drink and laugh with you. But since it was 'yes'...." 

"What?" Enjolras asked. He had a sudden flash of the feeling he had experienced only once or twice before, the certainty that he was on the verge of something unspecified but wonderful. "Since it was 'yes,' what?" 

This time, Bahorel's grin was ferocious. "Since it was 'yes,'" Bahorel said, "I have some friends I would like you to meet."


	2. Joly, 1825

Enjolras woke up in the night to the sound of several loud thumps on his door. "Enjolras!" a voice hissed outside. "Enjolras, damn you, wake up! I know _you_ don't have a woman in there, so you have no business ignoring me! Open the door!" 

After all that noise, it was no surprise to find Bahorel standing outside the door of his flat, supporting a young, long-haired man in a gray cap with an ominous-looking crimson patch sprouting on his chest. 

"An...encounter with a gendarme," Bahorel explained. "Hospitals are not safe, not for this fellow, and my flat was too far away." 

Enjolras stepped back to let Bahorel and his companion in. "Put him in the bed," said Enjolras, "and I will fetch Combeferre." 

Fortunately Combeferre lived in the same building as Enjolras, one floor up, and bringing him over was the work of a moment. 

"Bullet wound?" Combeferre asked the patient, who barely managed to croak out that it was actually from a knife. 

Combeferre carefully cut away the man's shirt. "Slicing wound, penetration of the thorax, accompanied by hemorrhaging and difficulty breathng," he murmured to himself. 

"How is he?" Bahorel asked. 

"I think we can pull him through," Combeferre said, with a reassuring smile at the patient.

"It looks like a great deal of blood," Enjolras said dubiously, feeling a little uneasy at the sight of the bright red spreading thickly into the bedding. 

Combeferre gave a short, rather forced laugh. "It is not," he said. "The human body has more than enough blood to spare this amount. I realize it's your sheets he's bleeding all over, but truly, Enjolras, it's not so dire. You need not look so shocked at the sight." 

"He's right," Bahorel said, "I've seen worse." 

Enjolras had not. But he knew there was every chance he would, soon enough. He had to suppress a shudder at the idea, and then sharply reprimanded himself for it. This was the path he had chosen. He must start accustoming himself to its ugliness. He had no right to shrink from it. 

Combeferre rose from where he had knelt by the bed, and came over to where Bahorel and Enjolras were standing. 

"It _is_ a great deal of blood," Combeferre said bluntly to Enjolras, "although there was no need to be tactless and alarm the patient."

"My apologies," said Enjolras. "It's serious, then?" 

"I do believe he can survive," Combeferre replied, "but I need to close the wound as soon as possible. For that I need a helping hand, and a needle." 

"I thought you had needles in your apartment, and in your bag?" Enjolras asked. 

"Yes," Combeferre said, "but not the correct sort. I need the kind Larrey invented, to suture the wound properly." He frowned. "I _should_ have such needles at hand--I find myself grossly unprepared..." 

"Why should you have it?" Enjolras demanded. "You have never needed to suture such a wound outside your classes or the hospital before. Do not blame yourself." 

"But where can you get the right needle at this time of night?" Bahorel shook his head. "Can't you just make do with the wrong sort of needle?" 

Combeferre looked unhappy with this idea. "I know at least three of my classmates would have the right sort in their apartments," he said, "and I could truly make use of another medically trained person. The wound needs to be closed as soon as possible. I don't yet have the training to do so properly alone." 

Bahorel frowned. "Do you trust any of them? Trust them with this boy's life and liberty, I mean?" 

Combeferre gave this due consideration. "There is one," he said, "whom I would trust. I believe him to share our political opinions and, even if I am wrong about that, he is very good-hearted. He would never betray anyone, and in any case, what is there to betray? We are only asking him for a needle, and for some help. He will not know that the patient has anything to hide." 

"He will know that you feel you cannot bring your patient to the hospital," Enjolras said, "and that may be enough to cause trouble." 

Bahorel reached for his coat. "Would he come with me, if I told him it was at your request?" 

"I think so," said Combeferre. 

"Tell me the address, then, and I'll go there at once." 

Combeferre gave the address, which was fortunately only ten minutes or so away on foot in both directions, if one were to walk very quickly. "His name is Joly," Combeferre said. 

"Oh," Enjolras said, "I met him once. Bahorel, I will go instead of you--he may be quicker to cooperate with me, since he has seen me with Combeferre." 

"Hurry," said Combeferre. 

Enjolras quickly dressed—he had been still in his nightshirt—and left. The night was cold and wet and misty, and the streets nearly empty. When Enjolras reached this Joly's apartment building, the concierge let him in, with a great deal of annoyed muttering about students and their irregular habits. He bounded up the stairs to the third floor and rapped briskly on Joly's door. 

"Coming," said a muffled voice from within the apartment. The door opened to reveal the fair-haired man Enjolras had met very briefly a week before, in Combeferre's company. "Oh," Joly said in confusion. "Good evening." 

"Combeferre sent me," Enjolras explained. "He needs your help, with a patient at my apartment. And he said you should bring some special kind of needle, for suturing a chest wound. Can you come?" 

"I know the needle," Joly said. "And of course, I can come, if Combeferre needs me, but why not just bring him to the hosp--oh. _Oh._ " Joly's eyes grew just slightly rounder. 

Enjolras met his gaze squarely. "Will you come and help, or not?" 

Joly bit his lip. "Yes. Of course, yes. Just give me a moment to dress and get my things." 

"Be quick about it," Enjolras said. "The patient is losing blood very fast, and I do not know how much Combeferre can manage by himself." He was relieved. He had not truly doubted that Joly would come--Combeferre had thought he would, after all--but still, he was glad Combeferre would not be left to fix this himself. 

Joly bustled out the door, making a great deal of unnecessary noise that would probably further irritate the concierge. "It's a wet night," Joly grumbled as they stepped outside, "and I shall probably catch a cold. Not that I would ever allow this to _dampen_ my zeal for healing the injured, of course." Joly threw a sidelong glance at Enjolras, who took a moment to understand the joke, and then promptly wished he had not. He smiled, though, out of politeness, and because Joly had been willing to leave his sleep and his comfort and come to Combeferre's aid, despite knowing that the business carried some risk. 

Joly chattered amiably and at great length about nothing in particular during their whole walk to Enjolras's apartment. But once there, Joly shed his frock coat and went straight to Combeferre's side at the patient's bed with only a brief greeting, immediately focused. 

Enjolras leaned against the wall at Bahorel's side. "What happened to him?" he asked Bahorel in a low voice, gesturing at the patient. 

"Someone informed on him," Bahorel said. "I can't think who, either, curse it! But the police raided a meeting of him and twenty-five other workers from his factory." 

"Twenty-five," Enjolras repeated. "I see. But he got away, somehow?" 

"Yes, he and a few others managed to escape through a back window, and scattered," Bahorel said. "The police were not clever enough to surround the place this time, lucky for him. He tried to get back to his apartment, but there was a gendarme on his street."

"Waiting for him?" 

"I don't know, but he thought so. He panicked and ran when he saw the fellow, which of course made him look very suspicious, even if the gendarme had come there for some other reason entirely. So the gendarme gave chase, and my friend here turned to fight, and, well, the gendarme took his knife from him and stabbed him with it." Bahorel shook his head. "If you are ever in such a situation, do not run. Do not assume you are under suspicion before you know it, or else you will make your own fears come true. Just walk calmly, like you are going for a coffee--but keep your eyes and ears open, of course." 

"How did you come to find him?" 

"I was at the flat of a mutual friend," Bahorel said, "He ran there because it was close by, but our friend rooms with a man who I do not know or have any reason to trust, and you were the closest person I knew, so..." 

Enjolras looked over at the patient. At first glance he had seen that the man was young; now Enjolras could see that his face was still childishly smooth and unformed. His voice as he answered Combeferre's questions had been high in pitch. A boy, not a man. "How old is he?" 

"No more than fifteen," Bahorel said with a grin," which is why he panicked, of course. It takes some time and experience to learn to keep one's head." 

"He is a child," Enjolras said. "He should not be in this situation in the first place. It is the shame of France that any child is." 

Bahorel looked at him in amusement. "Oh, yes, and you're a grandfather, are you? You're not much older than he is." 

Enjolras raised his eyebrows. "I will be twenty next month," he said. 

Bahorel snorted. "A mere babe in arms," he said. "Do you even need to shave?" 

The answer to that was "not very often," but Enjolras elected to change the subject rather than share that information. "What is his name?" 

"Jeannot Michel," Bahorel said. "but that name must go no further. It may be known to the police now, though I am not sure of that. I hope I am wrong."

"Perhaps we should give him something to bite down on?" Joly said, to Combeferre. "To, well, muffle his cries?" 

"I---am---not---crying," said Jeannot Michel, through clenched teeth. 

"I don't mean to frighten you," Joly said, "but you will be." 

Combeferre sighed. Enjolras could not help feeling a twinge of satisfaction at not being the only one to earn Combeferre's disapproval for tactlessness. 

Jeannot Michel's mouth was duly stuffed with one of Enjolras's clean nightshirts, and then the medical students began suturing his wound. 

The boy struggled heroically to keep silent, but he could not help the groans and the occasional shout that burst through the cloth. Bahorel paced up and down the length of the room, while Enjolras balled his hands into fists and remained as still and tense as a coiled snake. Joly and Combeferre, though they were often uncertain and consulting with one another, were wholly absorbed in their grisly work. They alone had the honor of being useful. 

After what seemed an interminable period, the wound was closed. Jeannot Michel was still conscious, and in pain, and deeply unhappy about the confluence of those two facts. 

"We cannot give you laudanum for the pain now, the dangers are too great," Combeferre said, "but I believe I will tomorrow. In the mean time, try and rest." 

It was at that precise moment that they all heard a frantic knocking on Enjolras's door. 

"Monsieur Enjolras?" came the voice of his landlady. "Monsieur Enjolras, what is all this commotion? Such an unholy noise as I heard! It sounded like someone was being murdered!" 

"It is nothing, madame," Enjolras called out, while Combeferre and Joly flung the bed covers over Jeannot Michel, so that his wound was covered, and only his head was visible. 

"Will you open the door, so I can see that all is well?" 

"One moment," Enjolras said, looking at the others. 

Joly darted over to Enjolras's side. "To someone standing at the door, he looks just like a girl," Joly said under his breath, pointing to Jeannot Michel. "Just tell her he's your mistress!" Joly tore off the coat Enjolras still had on, hastily opened Enjolras's shirt part-way, and, to Enjolras's bemusement, thoroughly ruffled his hair. "There, now you look more like you've come from a woman's arms. It will serve as an excuse for everything!" 

"I--" Enjolras began, and then cut himself off. He had no other plan. "The rest of you should hide, then." Bahorel nodded and scrambled under the bed, while Combeferre wedged himself into the space between the desk and the wall. 

Joly looked around wildly, unsure of where to go. Enjolras pushed him into the room's far corner, invisible from the doorway. 

The landlady rapped at the door again. "Monsieur Enjolras, you are worrying me! Open the door, if you please!" 

Enjolras reluctantly made his way to the door and opened it. "I assure you, madame, everything is perfectly fine--" 

The landlady craned her neck to see past Enjolras. He turned his head as well, and saw what she saw: a smooth face, surrounded by long brown hair that reached past the neck, and went below the bed covers. "Oh," the landlady said, frowning a bit. "Oh, I see. Sorry to disturb you," she said, sounding disapproving. "I understand you don't want to open the door when you are engaged in private matters, but try to be quieter about your business next time." She turned on her heel and left. 

Enjolras shut the door behind her. Joly, Bahorel and Combeferre came out of their hiding places, all smirking, though Combeferre had the grace to half-suppress it. Even Jeannot Michel, who was only still awake because the pain was keeping him so, showed a trace of amusement on his tightly drawn face. 

"I congratulate you on your quick thinking," Enjolras said to Joly, a bit dryly. "Your story worked most admirably." 

Joly beamed. "Oh, well, glad to help, really--awkwardness with one's landlady can be an awfully inconvenient thing, though it sounded to me like you might be in for a bit of awkwardness anyway, since she did not sound like she much approved of your goings-on, or what she thought were your goings-on. I suppose she is a stickler for the proprieties." 

"And now she has gone away thinking dreadful things about Enjolras's depraved predilections, and what on earth he was doing to make the 'girl' shout like that," Bahorel said, chuckling. "That is an amusing idea to end the night on, I will say. Jeannot will be all right, Combeferre?" 

"Yes," Combeferre said, going back to the bedside to check on him. "I know you are in severe pain," Combeferre said very gently, "but I assure you, you will fall asleep soon enough, and when you wake I will be able to relieve you a little." 

Jeannot looked dubious, but shut his eyes. 

"He cannot be moved," Combeferre said. "He must remain here, Enjolras, and for the next day or so he should have either me or Joly near him at all times. That is," he added suddenly, "if you can help me with that, Joly." 

"Of course," Joly said with a bright smile. "Anything I can do." 

"It might be easier if you stay in my apartment for the duration, though it will be cramped with both you and Enjolras there..." 

"I can stay here, and sleep on the floor," Enjolras said. "I will stay out of your way. I am rarely here anyway." 

"On the floor!" Joly said. "That is medically unsound. Why not stay in my apartment, since I will be staying with Combeferre? I will give you my key---" he fished around in his coat pockets, and handed the key to Enjolras. 

"That is most kind of you," Enjolras said. He and Joly had hardly seen each other before tonight, after all.

"Oh, not at all. But mind, my apartment is rather cold and damp, and the fire has been out for a long time, and I am sure you are highly phlegmatic--I can tell..." Combeferre looked amused by all this rattling, but said nothing as Joly continued. "So make sure you eat hot foods while you stay there, and oh, there's a particularly warm blanket in the cupboard next to the desk. You should take that out and use it. Promise me you will," he added, when Enjolras said nothing. 

Enjolras smiled. "I promise," he said. 

"Good," said Joly. "I am convinced there are very dangerous vapors in my apartment. I have tried my best to clear the air, but I fear it has not been completely successful. Nevertheless, it is better than sleeping on the floor." 

"I will take first watch with young Monsieur Michel," Combeferre said. "Here, Joly, take my key--go to my apartment and get some rest. I will wake you later in the morning to switch." 

"I will be back later to check on Jeannot," Bahorel said, as he left with Joly and Enjolras. 

Enjolras bid good night to Joly in the stairwell, and to Bahorel at the end of the street, and made his way to back to Joly's apartment. Once there, he remembered to open the cupboard and take out the blanket. It was a bit cold inside the apartment, though not as bad as Joly made it out to be. Enjolras draped the blanket over Joly's bed and then slid underneath it. His last drowsy thought was that the blanket was as thick and warm as Joly had said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The reference to “Larrey” is talking about Dominique Jean Larrey, a surgeon in Napoleon Bonaparte’s army. He wrote memoirs that you can find on GoogleBooks if you’re a dork, and some of the (deliberately vagued up) medicine here is influenced by that. I don’t actually know that Parisian med students in the 1820s would know anything about his innovations—that was more of a guess on my part.


	3. Courfeyrac, 1826

Enjolras glared in pure vexation at the two students who were standing further down the street, a short distance from the print shop where Enjolras was headed to pick up some pamphlets. 

He recognized both students from his civil code lectures, though their attendance was very spotty. Enjolras had heard the professor call one of them “Monsieur de Courfeyrac” while scolding him for talking in class. The other’s name was unknown to Enjolras, but he looked familiar. He was hatless and had a distinctive bald spot on his head.

Enjolras had to get to the printer’s shop before closing time. But he did not want anyone to recognize him going in. Bahorel had gotten arrested the previous week. The police had released him after a night in jail, but the chances were good his name was on a list of suspicious persons. 

If so, it was possible Bahorel’s close friends had been compromised by association. Enjolras, Combeferre and Joly had, by now, been seen in many places, most notably the Café Musain, with Bahorel. 

Enjolras did not wish to get the print shop’s owner into any difficulties through association with a known troublemaker. The owner was a widow who had inherited her husband’s shop and press. She was a staunch republican who knew the risks of her endeavors, but her name was so far unconnected with any sedition. It was best to keep it that way. 

De Courfeyrac and the other fellow showed no signs of moving. Worse still, they seemed to be looking at Enjolras. 

Were they working for the police? Very unlikely. They were simply nuisances. 

Enjolras decided the best course of action would be to walk away in the other direction, circle around and come back to the street. The two students might be gone by then, since there was not much to do on this particular street, and they appeared to be standing around aimlessly. If they were still there, he would need to devise a way to divert their attention from his entrance to the shop, which would be a difficult thing to do by himself.

He strode off briskly, going back the way he came. Ten minutes later, he approached the shop from the other direction. There was no sign of de Courfeyrac and his friend. 

Enjolras entered the shop and went through to the back room, only to see de Courfeyrac and the balding fellow chatting there with the shop’s owner.

“Ah, Monsieur Enjolras,” the woman said with a smile. “I have your pamphlets.” Enjolras looked at her in surprise. Madame Laurent was not a reckless woman. She would not mention the pamphlets in front of de Courfeyrac and his friend unless…

“Monsieur Courfeyrac came here for the same purpose as you,” she said with a grin. “If you ask me, his pamphlets are much wittier than yours, though yours are more inspiring and, I would say, more rigorously argued." 

De Courfeyrac was eyeing Enjolras narrowly. Enjolras returned the look. 

“It’s all right, boys,” Madame Laurent said, shaking her head. “You can trust each other, at least in this.” 

Enjolras was not in the least bit sure of this. Neither, from the looks on their faces, were de Courfeyrac or the balding fellow. 

Madame Laurent sighed. “Here, Monsieur Courfeyrac,” she said, shoving a pamphlet into his hand, “take a look at Monsieur Enjolras’s pamphlet, and you will see that he is no danger to you. You will probably agree with him. He is mostly right. And you, Monsieur Enjolras, look at Monsieur Courfeyrac’s. All three of you are no-good seditious rabble-rousers,” this was said with a twinkle, “and I have no time to pretend otherwise and wait until I have each of you separately to give you your pamphlets, because I need to close up the shop.” 

De Courfeyrac whispered something to the balding fellow who nodded, said goodbye to Madame Laurent, and left the shop. Then de Courfeyrac proceeded to skim the pamphlet Enjolras had come to pick up. 

Well, two could play at that game. Enjolras began to read de Courfeyrac’s pamphlet. 

Three sentences in, his attitude to de Courfeyrac underwent its very own revolution. 

De Courfeyrac's pamphlet was more than merely witty. It was engaging, passionate; it had _verve_. 

The pamphlet Enjolras and Combeferre had written, with assistance from a few others, was quite good. It was fiery, as well as concise and clear. They always tried to write so as to be comprehensible to all who could read. Given the responses to their other pamphlets from a broad cross-section of workers and students, Enjolras thought they had succeeded. 

But de Courfeyrac's pamphlet was unquestionably better. His argument relied too heavily on wild rhetorical leaps, yes, but that did not matter so much. One would _want_ to read de Courfeyrac's pamphlet, because it was a pleasure. De Courfeyrac had not simply made an argument, or railed against an injustice. He had told a story. Even someone with no interest in politics would want to read this tale, it was told with such flair. The story had a villain: Charles X and the monarchical system generally. And it had heroes: those who fought for liberty, equality and fraternity, including the readers of the pamphlets, if they wished. The villain was not yet defeated but, reading de Courfeyrac's words, one felt that it certainly _could_ be. 

Enjolras had not realized he was smiling until he heard de Courfeyrac say, “Do you smile because you agree with my arguments, or because you think them divertingly stupid?” 

De Courfeyrac had a rather guarded smirk on his face, as if he did not know what to expect from Enjolras, but was preparing himself to put on a show of amusement and sang-froid in any case. 

Enjolras decided to be frank. “I think you have done wonderfully,” he said. “Better than we have. I can imagine people who care nothing at all for politics reading this and enjoying it, and perhaps developing an interest because of it.” He smiled. 

De Courfeyrac’s expression softened, and he returned the smile with a wide grin. “Oh, yes, I can always amuse the frivolous,” he said, cheekily. “That’s my specialty. Yours, it would appear, is converting the serious but uncertain, and that is no doubt nobler, though perhaps less fun.” 

“Now that you two are finished admiring each other’s handiwork,” Madame Laurent said wryly, “you need to be off. I must close up.” 

He and de Courfeyrac went out the door, bidding Madame Laurent a good night. “Well,” said de Courfeyrac cheerily, “I suppose we are past formalities, but we might as well do the thing properly. I am Courfeyrac,” he said, extending his hand, and smiling. This smile was not the chilly smirk of before, or even the cheeky grin in response to Enjolras’s compliment. No, this smile completely transfigured Courfeyrac: it seemed like an overflowing of pure enthusiasm and good will. 

“Enjolras,” said Enjolras, taking the other man’s hand, and then could not resist adding, “but is it not _de_ Courfeyrac?” 

“Oh, no, please, spare me the shame of that ‘de,’” Courfeyrac said, making a very dramatic face. “I beg of you, do not inflict it on me.” 

“I would not dream of it,” Enjolras said. He could not help smiling: there was something about Courfeyrac’s theatrics that pulled it out of him. 

“Your pamphlet made me feel foolish, I confess,” Courfeyrac said as they walked down the street.

“In that case, it was an utter failure,” Enjolras said. “It was not meant to make anyone feel foolish.” 

“Oh, it would not do that to most people,” Courfeyrac said, with another winning smile. “Just to me, because I saw that you alluded to Condorcet’s arguments about progress in there, except I have been meaning to read Condorcet and keep putting it off, so your pamphlet reminded me of my laziness there.” 

Combeferre would undoubtedly make Courfeyrac read Condorcet’s writings, if Enjolras introduced them and they got to know each other better. For some reason, that thought made Enjolras happy. 

“If you have time tomorrow afternoon, please do come with me to meet some friends,” Courfeyrac said suddenly. He named a café not far from the law school. “My friend Lesgle, the fellow with the unfortunate bald spot you saw earlier, will be there, with a few others. They share our common interests. It would be profitable for us to speak further, perhaps.” 

“It would be a pleasure,” said Enjolras. 

While meeting Courfeyrac, Lesgle, and a handful of other students the next day, Enjolras swiftly discerned the following, which he listed methodically in his head in an experimental attempt to think like Combeferre: 

First, Courfeyrac had been allowing Lesgle to stay with him for at least six months while Lesgle could not afford his own rent, all the while pretending Lesgle was doing _him_ a favor because Courfeyrac had an irrational horror of living alone. 

Second, Courfeyrac’s band of students had been engaged in distributing pamphlets (and other activities that they hinted at, but would not speak of yet in front of Enjolras) for the past two or three months. 

Third, Courfeyrac was the unacknowledged but unmistakable leader of this very lively little group. It was plain at first glance that they all confided in him and trusted him. While Enjolras was there, Courfeyrac jollied one friend out of a fit of glumness over a romantic setback. He smoothed over a quarrel that threatened to break out between another two. He cured a fourth of anxiety over some upcoming task by somehow managing to tease and compliment him at the same time, until the fellow forgot his nerves in his laughter and renewed confidence. 

“If you have no other engagements this evening," Enjolras said, after everyone except he, Courfeyrac, and Lesgle had left, "I would like it very much if you both came with me to meet some of my friends, including some who worked on the pamphlet you read yesterday." Combeferre and Bahorel would undoubtedly be at the Musain tonight, and probably Joly as well. 

"I would be delighted," Courfeyrac said, his smile growing ever wider. 

"I would be too, but it will have to be another time," Lesgle said. "I am meeting a lady this evening. I devoutly hope my bad luck will give me a respite for just one night, though it always chooses the worst times to strike." He gave a comically exaggerated sigh. 

At the Musain, Courfeyrac was in his element--or so it seemed to Enjolras, at first. Courfeyrac came, he charmed, he conquered. He talked philosophy with Combeferre, all the while flatteringly deferring to Combeferre's greater expertise. He exchanged awful puns with Joly. "I shall have to introduce you to my friend Lesgle," he told Joly after they finished laughing about a particularly atrocious series of puns about everyone's names. Joly had been the easiest, of course, with Courfeyrac promptly christening him "joli,” but Enjolras had come in for some labored attempts involving "ange,” and Combeferre's calm had been taxed by their valiant striving to do something with the similarity between the last syllable of his name and "fer.” As for Courfeyrac himself, Joly pointed out that "cour" meant "court" and "fée" meant "fairy” (Courfeyrac had mock-glared at this, not liking the idea of being a fairy of the court), but had to admit defeat on the final syllable. They were wise enough not to push too hard to find a pun for Bahorel. 

"Your friend the eagle, hmm?" Joly riposted. "I have never met an eagle." Joly was slightly drunk by this point, and inclined to find everything very amusing. 

"Yes, yes, he's very familiar with that one," Courfeyrac said, grinning. "And you know, the poor fellow has a bald spot, so it's even more fitting, because they have bald eagles in America, you see." 

Just then Grantaire came into the back room, as he had taken to doing of late. He was already drunk. Enjolras noted his entrance with the now-familiar feelings of vexation, pity, and that odd, cutting disappointment. “He’ll never betray us,” Bahorel had promised, when bringing Grantaire to the back room for the first time. Bahorel’s word was good enough for Enjolras. More than that, Enjolras agreed: Grantaire would not betray a companion. But neither would he do anything but drink and rant and scoff. 

Enjolras could feel Grantaire’s eyes fix upon him. Another typical Grantaire behavior. By now, Enjolras knew why Grantaire stared so, but resolutely ignored it, and ignored his own unease with it as well. No good would come of paying it any attention. 

Grantaire’s voice rose above the chatter of the back room. His night’s display of drink-soaked cynicism was about to begin. Enjolras kept his face impassive as Grantaire alluded, as he occasionally did, to the bloodless beauty of marble gods. 

“This Grantaire fellow,” Courfeyrac said thoughtfully. Enjolras looked over to meet his new acquaintance’s shrewd gaze. “Perhaps I’ll go over and introduce myself to him.” Courfeyrac extricated himself from the table with an easy elegance and made his way over to Grantaire. Enjolras could not hear their conversation. But he saw Courfeyrac draw Grantaire away to a table. For the rest of the evening, he heard no more of Grantaire’s loud and idle fulminations. 

Enjolras was more than grateful. He was completely charmed. By the time Courfeyrac left that evening, Enjolras felt sure he was an excellent prospect, either as an ally or as a member of their growing circle. 

Enjolras had guessed his friends would feel the same. Which was why it came as a very unpleasant surprise later when he was alone with Combeferre, Bahorel and Joly, and Bahorel opined, “Young Monsieur de Courfeyrac is probably just flirting with republicanism as a rebellion against his aristocratic parents.” 

“Bahorel,” Enjolras said sharply, “you should not hold his ancestry against him. You should rejoice that he has looked beyond ease and convenience to see the necessity of a Republic.” 

“I do not object to him because his father is an aristo,” Bahorel retorted. “I object to him because he is a flighty young peacock.” 

“I do not think he is flighty,” Enjolras said. “He is steadfast in his generosity. And as for the charge of vanity, Courfeyrac pays more attention to clothes than I would, but everyone is entitled to his own pleasures.” He looked very pointedly at Bahorel’s waistcoat, which was a violent shade of red, and tight enough that everyone could see the ripples of Bahorel’s chest and stomach muscles. 

Bahorel followed his gaze but, being Bahorel, was thoroughly unabashed. “I pay proper attention to dress, unlike you two,” he said, looking at Enjolras and Combeferre. “Joly is the only one here who I’m not ashamed to be seen with.”

Ignoring this, Enjolras said with a frown, “ I don’t understand your objection. You have never been this cynical about the prospects of anyone else we have invited to the Musain before.”

Bahorel sighed. “He’s very charming, Enjolras.” 

Joly gave Bahorel a quizzical look. “And that is a problem?” 

“It is,” Bahorel said. “I don’t trust people who are charming.” 

There was a beat while Enjolras, Combeferre and Joly worked through the implications of this. 

“And you trust us,” Joly said, putting two and two together, “so that means…”

“That you consider us utterly charmless,” Combeferre finished dryly. “Well, your friendship means a great deal to us, too, Bahorel,” he said with a grin. 

Bahorel grinned back and punched Combeferre lightly in the shoulder. “I wouldn’t say _charmless_ ,” Bahorel said, “but none of you is precisely _charming_ , either—at least, not the way this de Courfeyrac is. You, Joly, are very endearing, and people like you very much, but not because you conduct a deliberate campaign of any kind to make them like you. No, we like you for the same reason we would like a gamboling kitten. The kitten entertains, but it is not trying to entertain. It merely goes about its own business, and we humans coo over it.” 

“…first you say we aren’t charming, and then you compare me to a household pet,” Joly said. He gave Bahorel what was probably intended to be a look of severe, dignified reproof, but ended up being more of a pout. 

Bahorel laughed and tousled Joly’s hair. “A very desirable pet, don’t forget, and one that women love to keep.” 

“I suppose that’s a consolation,” Joly said dubiously. 

“It’s not a consolation, it’s the prize,” Bahorel replied. “Enjolras, now, can _seem_ extremely charming. But that happens when he is very seriously explaining his ideals to someone. He is not _trying_ to charm you when he speaks like that, which is probably why it succeeds. His mind is entirely occupied with the dream of the future Republic, and bringing you into that dream, and you willingly accompany him if you have any soul at all.” Enjolras looked down at the table. Hearing that sort of praise from Bahorel was…humbling, because it was so obviously undeserved. The dream of the Republic spoke for itself, inspired of itself, and did not depend on Enjolras or any single individual as a spokesman, though he was honored to serve as one of many such advocates. 

“Combeferre here is too learned to be charming,” Bahorel continued. “A charming person makes you feel like you are intelligent, as well as attractive and interesting. Now, I defy anyone to speak to Combeferre for more than five minutes without coming away feeling like a complete dolt.” 

“Thank you,” Combeferre said, even drier than before. 

“I don’t mean that you show off or posture in the slightest. Just the opposite. You can’t hide how much you know, or how ferociously you pursue greater knowledge, or how rigorously and deeply you think, because it is part of who you are, not a pretense of any kind. You could not conceal it without constantly lying and becoming less than what you are.” 

Enjolras smiled. That was entirely true. Combeferre’s brilliance, tempered as it was with humane wisdom, could not help but shine through every word he said in any conversation of substance. 

“But this de Courfeyrac—”

“He does not use the particle,” Enjolras objected. 

Bahorel snorted. “No, because he’s _trying to irritate his father._ I know you like to see a potential ally in every misbegotten student here in Paris, Enjolras—”

“I do not,” Enjolras said. “I hope you do not think so little of my judgment.” 

“No,” Bahorel sighed. “You know I don’t, or else I would not be here. But Enjolras, I fear this de Courfeyrac is a seducer, plain and simple. That’s what I have been trying to make clear. He _makes_ people like him. He deliberately sets out to please them, to make them laugh, to make them feel better in his presence, and I fear he does this out of habit, to _everyone_. No matter what he truly thinks of them, whether he even likes them or not. He was even charming to Grantaire when Grantaire went off on his rant! One can never tell whether such a person is truly loyal and sincere because he will behave just as charmingly no matter what. Such people are always pleasant, but pleasantries are not kindness. They may be witty, but wit is not honesty, and being _pleasing_ isn’t the same as being _true._ ” 

Enjolras leaned forward. “You wrong him, Bahorel. Courfeyrac is exceedingly generous, not only with his money, but with his time, his concern and his affection. And he risks himself without flinching for his beliefs. He has conviction, not just charm.” 

“I think so too,” Joly said. “I liked him as well, Enjolras, and I think you’re right to trust him. I say you give him a trial.” 

“There can be no real harm in _trying_ him,” Combeferre said, though he looked very skeptical. 

“True enough,” Bahorel conceded. “If he proves himself, Enjolras, I will happily admit I was wrong. Well, I’m off. I was late to meet my mistress last time and she will not forgive me if I am late again.” 

Joly glanced nervously at his watch. “I should leave as well,” he said, “since the Polytechniciens said to meet early tomorrow--”

“This is nothing for you,” Enjolras said to Joly, noting his unease. “I know you will have no troubles, and if you do, you are more than capable of resolving them.” He smiled, and Joly, after a moment, smiled back. 

“Right,” Joly said, shrugging on his overcoat. “It’s just nerves, that’s all.” 

“And you know how to master them, because you’ve done it before,” Enjolras said calmly. 

Joly smiled again, more broadly this time. “True. _That_ , I have practice with. Good night, you two.” 

Once they were alone, Combeferre turned to Enjolras and said, “You believe very strongly in this Courfeyrac.” 

“Yes,” Enjolras said. “I think he is dedicated, honorable and capable.” 

“Bahorel is right, though, that Courfeyrac is a very calculated charmer. That does not make you uneasy?” 

“I do not think his charm is as calculated as Bahorel makes it out,” Enjolras said. “I think it is a genuine outpouring of feeling on Courfeyrac’s part. If it encompasses everyone, that only speaks to his generosity of heart. He is not a seducer, Combeferre. He simply has verve.” 

“That is one way of putting it,” Combeferre replied. 

Enjolras felt hurt, somehow, though he could not quite understand why. It seemed very obvious to him that Courfeyrac was both goodhearted and trustworthy, that what looked to Bahorel and Combeferre like an insincere performance of pleasing manners was in fact a bubbling over of true enthusiasm for all happy things in this world. It pained Enjolras that Combeferre, of all people, could not readily see this in Courfeyrac. 

Perhaps it showed on his face, because Combeferre continued very gently, “I do not say we should not try him. We should not dismiss him out of hand, I agree. If he proves himself, well and good. I just…” He laid his hand on Enjolras’s shoulder. “My friend, you always see people in their noblest light. And you are usually correct, perhaps because you _make_ yourself correct.” 

“I cannot _make_ myself correct,” Enjolras objected. “I try to see what is truly there in a person. And what is there is often better than what others think is there, but I cannot _make_ someone devoid of conviction and principle into a good man.” 

“No,” Combeferre said, “you cannot create goodness where it does not exist. But you can inspire others to develop the goodness in themselves, because they wish to live up to what you see in them.” 

“I cannot,” Enjolras said. “I cannot be someone’s reason for growth, Combeferre. No one person can, and you know this. I am not Courfeyrac’s reason and I do not need or expect to be. He has his own reasons.” 

“What I am trying to say,” Combeferre said, his voice growing gentler still, “is that you are accustomed to people being, or becoming, as good as you think they are. And in this particular case you seem to have set your heart on it. I do not wish you to feel hurt if Courfeyrac does not fulfill your expectations. That is all.” He hesitated, before continuing, “Most people want to meet your expectations. That is a good thing. It helps keep those involved with our work faithful and diligent. But some disappointments are inevitable. It is best to be prepared for them.” 

“I am prepared,” Enjolras said. “I understand that I may be wrong about Courfeyrac, or about anyone I bring in.” He smiled at Combeferre. “This knowledge does not pain me as much as you fear it will, my friend.” 

Combeferre, returning the smile, said, “Perhaps it simply pains me, then, to think of someone disappointing you.” He paused, then added, “I know I hate the thought of ever doing so myself.” 

Enjolras’s hand went up to cover Combeferre’s, where it was still resting on Enjolras’s shoulder. “That would be impossible,” Enjolras said. “You could not do that if you tried. You keep talking as if I have _expectations_ , Combeferre, but I do not. I see what is there, not what I wish to be there. And I could never be disappointed with what there is in you.” 

Combeferre actually blushed. “I…thank you, Enjolras. I am honored by your faith in me.” 

“It is not faith,” Enjolras insisted. “It is knowledge.” He squeezed Combeferre’s hand. “It’s late, my friend. Let us go home.” 

Enjolras met Courfeyrac frequently after the latter’s visit to the Musain. Each meeting made him more determined to find a way of testing Courfeyrac so Enjolras could justly bring him into his circle. 

An opportunity presented itself sooner than expected, two weeks after Courfeyrac came to the Musain. Enjolras was supposed to meet Courfeyrac at a café near the law school. Courfeyrac turned up ten minutes late and looking harassed. 

“I need your help with something, if you are not engaged tonight,” Courfeyrac said abruptly, after a greeting that was much less vibrant and much more distracted than his usual. “I would ordinarily ask Lesgle, but he’s out of Paris for the week. It came up very suddenly and needs to be done this very night, and I’m having trouble finding someone proper who is available, and, well…” He gave Enjolras an appraising look. “Your help would be most welcome,” he finished. 

“What can I do?” Enjolras asked. 

“Madame Laurent is in a bit of a difficult situation,” Courfeyrac said, lowering his voice. “She has several boxes of cartridges stored in her shop. Never mind how she got them,” he said, forestalling Enjolras’s next question. “She never should have, but the fools who dumped them on her gave her no honorable choice but to accept custody. She should not be burdened with such a charge and she would like very much to be rid of them as quickly as possible. I promised her I would take them to my apartment tonight. There are many boxes. I could use another pair of hands.” 

Enjolras agreed without hesitation. This would be a chance to see how Courfeyrac did a task that was unglamorous, yet somewhat risky. 

He met Courfeyrac at the print shop that evening. Madame Laurent was waiting anxiously for them. She had the boxes of cartridges stacked in the front room of the shop. One could not easily see them from the door, but they became immediately visible one step in. 

Enjolras and Courfeyrac put nearly all of the boxes into the two traveling-cases they had brought for this purpose. But there was one box left that would not fit. 

“Leave it,” Madame Laurent advised, “you have to come back here for those new pamphlets you wanted, anyway, Monsieur Courfeyrac.” 

Courfeyrac nodded and made for the door, lugging a case. Enjolras shook his head and took the box, wrapping it up in his scarf and stuffing it under his arm. He had seen a couple of gendarmes much further down the street. Their presence was probably wholly unrelated and no danger at all, but it was still best if Madame Laurent did not have a box of cartridges sitting in the front-most room of her shop, or anywhere in her shop for that matter. 

They took a fiacre. At the apartment, Courfeyrac searched for a good hiding place, while Enjolras removed the box from under his arm and emptied the traveling cases. “Aha!” Courfeyrac said. “Here, under these clothes.” It was certainly lucky that Courfeyrac had such a lot of clothes, Enjolras reflected. 

Enjolras went with Courfeyrac back to the print shop for Courfeyrac’s new pamphlets, mostly just to keep him company. When they reached the street, Courfeyrac seized Enjolras’s arm in a violent grip. “Oh God,” came his strangled voice. He pointed. Enjolras looked to see a gendarme looming at the doorway of Madame Laurent’s shop. Madame Laurent herself was just inside. “She has that last box of cartridges right in the front room!” 

Enjolras suddenly realized that Courfeyrac had not seen him take the last box from the shop because Courfeyrac had already been out the door. Nor had Courfeyrac seen Enjolras remove the box from under his arm at Courfeyrac’s apartment, because Courfeyrac had been hunting for a hiding place. 

Courfeyrac was still talking, his voice growing graver with every word. “She cannot be allowed to take the blame. I will tell the gendarme I left the cartridges there. It is my duty. I promised her I would remove them for her.” 

Enjolras blinked. “Courfeyrac, I applaud your strict sense of honor, but--”

It was too late: Courfeyrac pulled his mouth up in a brave smile, tipped his hat to Enjolras, and began sprinting over to the gendarme and Madame Laurent. 

Enjolras ran after him, meaning to silence Courfeyrac or drag him away bodily, if necessary, before he said something truly stupid. 

"Sir, I can explain, so you can stop troubling the lady..." Courfeyrac began breathlessly. 

"Trouble?" Madame Laurent cut in sharply. "There is no trouble here, you silly boy. This good man was simply inquiring if I had heard anything about a robbery in that shop over there." She pointed, then turned to the gendarme and smiled. "This dear boy is like my nephew, you see. He saw me speaking to you and became worried." She looked fondly at Courfeyrac. "You worry too much for your age, I have always told you."

Enjolras, who had come to a stop a little way behind the gendarme, raised his eyebrows meaningfully at Courfeyrac. 

"Oh," said Courfeyrac. "Er. Yes, well, my apologies, in that case, monsieur." 

"I understand," said the gendarme benevolently. "Your concern does you credit, young man." 

"Come, Courfeyrac," Enjolras said. "I am sure the lady wishes to go home for the night, and we must not keep this man from his duties." Bidding Madame Laurent and the gendarme a good night, they walked off. 

As soon as they were a safe distance away, Courfeyrac turned on Enjolras. "Did you move the cartridges?” Enjolras nodded. "You should have told me, you devil!" 

"I tried," Enjolras said, feeling his mouth twitch, "but you were too busy falling on your sword to attend to me." 

Courfeyrac stared at him, and then gave a short laugh. "What a fool you must think me," he said. 

"No," Enjolras said. He reached over to touch Courfeyrac's arm. "You were ready to fall on the sword to prevent a fellow citizen, and a woman at that, from being impaled upon it. I cannot call that foolish. I can only admire it, and rejoice that I was fortunate enough to witness it." 

Courfeyrac's cheeks turned pink. "Yes, well, you know, Madame Laurent is an awfully kind woman, nobody could do less for her," he muttered. Enjolras could not help feeling amused: this was the first time he had seen Courfeyrac show any embarrassment. He would not have thought the other man capable of such a sentiment. "Why did you take the box, anyway?"

"I had seen gendarmes further down the street as we came, and so thought it might be prudent to remove anything dangerous from the shop. There was no need to expose Madame Laurent to that."

"It is fortunate that you, at least, thought ahead," Courfeyrac said, with a melodramatic grimace. Without warning, he pulled Enjolras to him in an embrace. "I am very much in your debt, my friend. I would have been utterly lost without you." Stepping back, he said, smilingly, "I will find a way to repay you, never fear." 

"There is no debt," Enjolras said gravely, "We have a common vision, and we both act in its service. Anything we give each other is not to be tallied as credit or debit, but should be marked instead as a gift to the Republic in both our hearts." 

Courfeyrac's eyes danced. "Then I shall have to find some new service I can do for the Republic as soon as I can," he said lightly. 

Enjolras could not help smiling. This was becoming a frequent affliction in Courfeyrac’s company. "You would do that anyway," he said. "You are too generous and too faithful to your convictions to do otherwise." 

Courfeyrac flung his arms around Enjolras again, the second time in a period of perhaps three minutes. He was certainly a very demonstrative fellow. "Enjolras," he said into Enjolras's neck, "if you do not stop saying excessively kind things about me in such earnest, I shall be forced to keep doing this." 

"Is that meant to frighten me?" Enjolras asked, amused. Courfeyrac released him, giving him only a saucy grin in reply. "Come with me to the Musain," Enjolras went on. "Combeferre and Bahorel and the others will be there, and we can tell them of our adventure."

“Adventure,” repeated Courfeyrac with a shudder. “I suppose that’s one way to describe it.” 

Combeferre, Bahorel and Joly were all there, playing cards over glasses of wine. Enjolras told them the evening’s tale, since Courfeyrac was inclined to dance around the subject and steer the conversation elsewhere. 

When Enjolras finished, he caught Combeferre’s eye. Combeferre gave him a brief nod, and smiled at Courfeyrac. “You do know what the penalty would have been,” Combeferre said, to Courfeyrac.

“Deportation, yes,” Courfeyrac said, more to his wine glass than to Combeferre. “A grim and ignominious fate.” He shrugged. “Ah, well, I would have had the consciousness of right to give me strength, I suppose.” He was obviously aiming for flippancy, but missed, and landed on sincerity instead. 

“You young idiot,” Bahorel said, grinning and clapping Courfeyrac on the shoulder. 

“You have me there,” Courfeyrac admitted meekly. “I am young, and obviously an idiot, though Enjolras very kindly tried to deny it.” 

“Never mind Enjolras,” Joly said. “ _We_ know you’re an idiot.” Joly said this with a sweet smile, as if giving Courfeyrac a great compliment. 

Courfeyrac changed the topic from his idiocy so deftly, Enjolras could not quite pin down how he did it. All he saw was that Bahorel and Joly had moved over a table and begun a game of dominoes. Courfeyrac, for his part, was now trying to bait Combeferre by voicing some perverse opinions on Saint-Simon, while Combeferre neatly confounded him by remaining maddeningly unruffled. 

Enjolras, sitting between Combeferre and Courfeyrac, listened, and said little, and was utterly content.


	4. Bossuet, 1826

"You’re amazingly cheerful despite all your afflictions, Joly," Lesgle said, straight-faced, as if Courfeyrac had never smilingly briefed him that Joly's only medical problem was a diseased imagination. 

It was Lesgle's first visit to the back room of the Café Musain. Enjolras had spoken with him; Combeferre had all but dissected him and held his innards up to the candlelight for inspection; Bahorel had questioned him incisively under a deliberately misleading show of bluster. 

But after Lesgle escaped their clutches, only moderately scathed, Courfeyrac introduced him to the sunny Joly, whose suspicion that he had tuberculosis did nothing to cloud his countenance. 

Lesgle had since found his perch on the arm of Joly's chair. "If I were English," he now continued, "I might say you were _jolly_." 

"Extra 'ls'-- _ailes_ ," Courfeyrac said, sounding very pleased with himself. "Very fitting, my dear eagle. But why stop at giving him just one more _aile_? Be generous!" 

"Jollly," Lesgle said, rolling the 'ls' off his tongue with relish. Joly laughed. His head tilted back, brushing against Lesgle's hand. Enjolras saw Lesgle move to ruffle Joly's hair before apparently remembering that they had only just met, and checking the gesture. 

"What do you think?" Combeferre said, in Enjolras's ear. 

"We should bring him in," Enjolras said, "and the rest of Courfeyrac's group, if they are willing to merge with ours." He looked at Combeferre. "Do you agree?" 

"Yes," Combeferre said. "Though it does raise the question of whether, and how, we should test the people from Courfeyrac's group." 

"If Courfeyrac vouches for them," Bahorel said, from across the table, "and tells us how exactly he determined their loyalty, then I think we needn't trouble with that." 

Enjolras looked over at Courfeyrac and caught his eye. At a gesture from Enjolras, Courfeyrac came over to their table, leaving Joly and Lesgle to their mutual enthusiasm—and to Grantaire, who had come in and needed to be entertained. 

"We have talked of joining our two groups together," Enjolras said, once Courfeyrac had taken a seat. "All of us here think it would be a good plan." 

"As do I," said Courfeyrac, smiling, "but I suspect you didn't call me over here simply to express your approval." 

"No," Enjolras admitted. "We wanted to know your methods for verifying the trustworthiness of your group.” 

"Ah," Courfeyrac said. "Well. First, of course, I simply talk to them about their politics. Lesgle and I both do this--and if you're wondering whether you can trust _him_ , the answer to that is very simple. He and I have been involved in this together from the beginning. For months now he has known all that I know. To trust me is to trust him." He looked around the table at Enjolras, Combeferre and Bahorel, as if waiting for a challenge.

When none was forthcoming, Courfeyrac went on, "I am free with who I _talk_ to. Too much caution doesn’t help our cause any more than recklessness does. The talking part goes on for a while. I bring them in to listen to our conversations and so forth, to see if they're shocked by all our republican back-chat." 

"And what happens when you move beyond the talking part?" Combeferre asked. 

"Tests," Courfeyrac said. "I give them safe assignments, or false ones. I tell them something and ask them to keep it confidential, and then see if it remains so. We watch and see if their clothes are too fine for their income, or if anything else does not fit. We get them drunk.” 

"Our approach is similar," Enjolras said. 

"These methods are always imperfect and involve some risk,” Bahorel said, to Courfeyrac. “If your people have been tested so, I am willing to trust them--provisionally." 

Courfeyrac's eyes narrowed at the "provisionally." 

"Meaning," Bahorel explained, "that trust is never earned all at once and then finished with. Trust is a delicate plant. It needs constant reassurance if it is to prosper." 

Enjolras could see the sense in that. Courfeyrac obviously could as well, though he just as obviously did not like it. 

"Come now, Jollly," Lesgle's voice broke in through their conversation. "You will not die of tuberculosis. You do not have tuberculosis." 

"You can't possibly know that," Joly retorted. "You are not a doctor. You are a law student." 

"Of sorts," Lesgle agreed peaceably. "Well, never mind. If you do die, I swear I will give you a funeral oration so grand, it will live in the memories of all who attend, far longer than any ordinary doctor would be remembered if he did not have an eloquent friend to eulogize him. That should be a comfort, hmm? Your life may be tragically cut short by disease, but I will give you immortality, by finding the words--" 

"Oh, stop it," Joly laughingly interrupted, as it became clear that Lesgle was quite prepared to go on, and on, and on. "To be eulogized by you, Lesgle--Lesgle de Meaux--hah!" Joly cut off his own train of thought, clearly delighted by something that had just occurred to him. "We have our very own Bossuet here, our own _aigle de mots_!”

“What an honor!" cried Grantaire, raising his bottle in a toast of some kind. 

"Our very own absolute royalist," Bahorel mock-grumbled. "The original Bossuet should have gone straight to a guillotine." 

"I very humbly beg your pardon, Bossuet. I wish I would die right this moment, whether of tuberculosis or from some dreadful vapor, just so I could have the privilege of having you speak at my funeral." Joly grinned at the freshly dubbed Bossuet. 

Courfeyrac took up the nickname with glee, moving back to the table where Joly and his new comrade were sitting with Grantaire. By the end of the evening everyone had almost forgotten they had ever called him Lesgle. He was now and forever Bossuet. 

“Bahorel,” came a voice from someone entering the back room.

Bahorel waved his friend over to the table where he, Enjolras and Combeferre were sitting, and introduced him as Louret. 

"We've met," said Louret, to Enjolras. "You kicked me in the head." 

Enjolras remembered. This was one of the men Bahorel had bribed into attacking him, almost a year ago now, to see how Enjolras and Combeferre would react. "My apologies," Enjolras said. "I hope I caused no serious injury. When I kicked you, I hadn't yet realized your attack was staged." 

Louret grinned. "Oh, there was no lasting harm done. And I don't blame _you_ , Enjolras," he said, looking meaningfully at Bahorel. 

"Oh come now," Bahorel protested, "you knew what you were getting into." 

Louret snorted. "'One of them doesn't know how to fight and the other is skinny,' that's what you told me," he said. 

"Technically accurate," Bahorel said with a shrug. 

"And you love technicalities, hmm, like any good lawyer?” 

"Call me that again, and we shall have to step outside." Bahorel cracked his knuckles. 

Louret took the seat Courfeyrac had abandoned at their table. “I have a request for you, from our friend Jeannot Michel,” he said. “He and some workers at his factory are in need of some legal advice. Of course _you_ could do nothing to help with that.” Louret was exceedingly sardonic. “But you have friends who, I believe, occasionally attend class in their spare time, when they have nothing better to do. Perhaps they could…?"

It was arranged that Enjolras, Bossuet and a man named Géroux would visit one of the factory workers’ favorite haunts the next evening. Géroux was a member of Courfeyrac’s group and had actually passed his bar, which made his advice at least _look_ somewhat impressive.

The visit was fruitful---but the very next night, the police interrupted a workers’ meeting at the same inn where the workers had met with Enjolras, Bossuet and Géroux.

“No one was arrested,” Bahorel told Enjolras immediately after the raid, when they were at the Musain with Combeferre, Courfeyrac and Bossuet. “They threw the republican propaganda into the fire before the gendarmes came in. One of the workers had been standing on a table talking of suffrage, mind you. But he was a very clever fellow. He had carefully placed a volume of the works of Molière on the table beforehand, as a precaution. When he heard the gendarmes stomping up to the door, he had the presence of mind to move seamlessly from the rights of man to the witticisms of Scapin, and everyone just insisted they were simply a literary society, rehearsing a play.”

“But how did the police know to interrupt their meeting?” Combeferre asked, his brow furrowed.

“Ah, yes, well, there’s the rub,” Bahorel said. “You see…”

“We have a spy,” Bossuet interjected. “What?” he said, in response to the others’ stares. “That must be the case. The police never interrupted the workers’ meetings before Enjolras, Géroux and I visited them, did they?”

Bahorel decisively negatived this. “They have held meetings there for over a year with no trouble,” he said, “and any one of them could have blabbed about much more incriminating meetings than the one that was raided tonight.”

“There you have it, then,” Bossuet said. “Maybe it was a coincidence. But it would be a very lucky accident for our friends the police. A very lucky accident, indeed, since they knew the exact time and place to raid the workers’ next meeting. Pardon me, but I don’t think it’s just my usual bad luck that makes me very unwilling to believe that the police are such favorites of Fortuna. She’s a fickle mistress, Fortuna is, and she’s much sought-after. I can’t believe her taste is so dreadful as to run to such a strong preference for the police. They’re ugly fellows, mostly. No. One of us who knew about this meeting—and I hate to be so rude as to point this out, but there are only three of us who did—has been a chatterbox. ”

“Yes,” Bahorel finally said. “I was going to be more circumspect in leading up to the subject…but yes, Bossuet is right. We must have a spy.”

Enjolras’s jaw clenched. A spy. A traitor. “Who?”

“Well, not you,” Bahorel said brightly, reaching over to pat Enjolras on the shoulder. “I trust you. And I trust Courfeyrac, which means I trust Lesgle. But this Géroux…”

“If it comes to that,” Bossuet interrupted, “I trust Enjolras because I trust Courfeyrac, and Courfeyrac trusts him. Trust is transitive, as we all know. But Géroux I trust because I know him. He is not a spy.”

Bossuet’s countenance was pleasant, smiling, and absolutely unyielding, with the hint of an edge behind it. Courfeyrac, sitting by his side, was uncharacteristically impassive.

Enjolras, Combeferre and Bahorel exchanged glances. Bahorel opened his mouth, no doubt to say something belligerent, but Enjolras put a restraining hand on his wrist. “Why are you so sure of Géroux?” Enjolras asked.

“We _know_ him,” Courfeyrac said. “What do you want, an anecdote proving his loyalty? There are many such. He always does what he says he will and never shrinks from risk.”

“He also knows more damaging and valuable information than the time and location of some mildly illicit workers’ meeting,” Bossuet said. “If he wanted to trade intelligence for money, he has better goods to sell. I suppose he could be holding his powder, but for what? We have nothing so dramatic definitely planned for soon.”

Enjolras weighed this. “Is there any close friend he might have told about the workers’ meeting?”

Courfeyrac frowned. “He is thick as thieves with Tharaud and Saussine,” he said, naming two members of his own group. “He might have let his guard down enough with them to let something slip…but truly, Enjolras, I cannot believe either of them a spy.”

“I told no one of the workers’ meeting,” Enjolras said, “not even anyone in our group. Did you, Bossuet?”

“No,” Bossuet said unhappily.

Courfeyrac looked very grave. "We take care to weed out traitors," he said. 

Bahorel put a hand on Courfeyrac's shoulder. "You weed them out by testing them, as you told us?" Courfeyrac nodded. "And do you test them so only at the beginning? Or do you keep running checks on them even after they have been fully inducted into your circle?"

"I..." Courfeyrac's voice faded as Bahorel's implication sunk in. "Only at the beginning," Courfeyrac admitted. "After that, I trust them. I suppose I would stop trusting them if I noticed something suspicious, but not otherwise. This sort of endeavor cannot exist without trust, Bahorel. Or perhaps that's just my weakness. I cannot do any of this—“ Courfeyrac gestured broadly. “---without trust. I can’t even imagine how one would do so.” 

Bahorel squeezed Courfeyrac's shoulder. "One cannot," Bahorel said. "And if someone found a way to do so, I'm not at all sure it would be superior. Trust is essential. Don’t think I blame you, Courfeyrac. We simply need to solve this puzzle.” 

Enjolras had been staring, deep in thought, at the table in front of him. Now he raised his head, and looked at Courfeyrac, hoping to reassure him. "Trust is indeed essential," he said. "Our group has relied on it. All the same, I think it would be advisable for us to periodically test even those within our circle of trust. We have never done so in the past, Courfeyrac, any more than you have. Do not blame yourself. Our group has always done exactly what yours has done, that is, test people in the beginning and then trust them without much further question. But it is time for a change."

Combeferre nodded emphatically, but Courfeyrac still looked extremely gloomy. 

Enjolras leaned forward. “Our first problem is to find out who betrayed us this time,” he said. “Let us for the moment suppose that Géroux is not a spy. Bossuet’s reasoning on the matter is sound. For similar reasons, and for practicality’s sake, let us also suppose that no one at this table is a spy,” he added, not without humor. “Bossuet and I told no one about tonight’s meeting. So we must consider the people Géroux might have told.”

“Tharaud and Saussine.” Courfeyrac’s voice was hard-edged; he did not sound like Courfeyrac at all.

Enjolras nodded. “I suggest another test of both of them. We give them each a tale of some kind, and see what they do with it.”

It was agreed that Courfeyrac and Bossuet would respectively tell Tharaud and Saussine that a certain bookshop contained, hidden within a volume of Voltaire, a list of workers who were planning to strike some unspecified time in the near future and of student agitators who were their allies.

Combeferre objected to the idea of a secret list hidden in a book as too melodramatic. But Courfeyrac insisted it was just melodramatic enough. “It has to be a good story, Combeferre,” he said, “or else they won’t believe it. People will always believe a good story over a plausible one.”

In support of the good story, Courfeyrac created a dummy list to slip into the dusty volume of Voltaire. (“I suppose no one is likely to actually _buy_ this particular volume in the next day or so?” Bossuet said, with a touch of sarcasm. “Please tell me it is on a back shelf somewhere—otherwise, all this may be for nothing.”) Combeferre kept a careful eye over Courfeyrac’s shoulder to make sure he did not include too many bad puns among the invented names on the list.

Enjolras thought it a good thing that Courfeyrac’s distress over a spy in their ranks could not repress his sense of fun, no matter how many exasperating jokes it produced.

They were to take turns staking out the bookshop, to see if Tharaud or Saussine went in after receiving the false information. Neither would have any reason to visit that particular shop unless he was the spy. Bossuet and Enjolras were to take first watch; Bahorel and Courfeyrac would relieve them after six hours.

“I suppose we just wait,” Bossuet said, as they slipped into a hidden nook across the street from the shop.

“Yes,” Enjolras said. “It may be a long time before either one of them comes here.”

“Oh, hell,” Bossuet said, “this is going to be painfully dull, isn’t it? I hadn’t thought of that, somehow.”

Bossuet’s method of countering boredom was to talk. “Joly has invited me to move in with him,” he said, after a moment. “He has space in his apartment for two.”

Enjolras had nothing to say to this, so he said nothing.

“At least I’ll be able to stop imposing on Courfeyrac for a while,” Bossuet continued after a while.

“I thought Courfeyrac hated living alone?” Enjolras said carefully.

Bossuet gave him a look of exaggerated amusement. “Oh come now, don’t pretend you believed _that_ story for a second.” Enjolras smiled, conceding. Bossuet shook his head. “I am so far in Courfeyrac’s debt, I have no hope of getting out even if we both live to be a hundred.”

“Everyone Courfeyrac knows is in his debt in some way,” Enjolras said. “His greatness is that no one feels burdened by this.”

“Yes, he not only gives, he cleverly helps you save face while accepting. Nevertheless, it is better if I relieve him for some time. I shall put myself in Joly’s debt instead.”

Bossuet looked almost melancholy---a very odd look on him.

“Joly is kind,” Enjolras said after a moment, “but he is not of Courfeyrac’s disposition. If he invited you to stay with him, it is not out of an all-encompassing generosity. It is because having you with him will make him happy.”

Bossuet flushed. “Perhaps,” he said. “I don’t know if that makes me _less_ in his debt, or all the more so.”

Enjolras saw a movement across the street. He nudged Bossuet’s arm.

It was Tharaud, accompanied by a rough-looking man. The two went into the shop together.

Bossuet swore under his breath as eloquently as his namesake had ever praised God and the King.

Tharaud and his companion came out a minute later, holding the false list. They crossed the street and came to stand a short distance from the jutting bit of wall that concealed Bossuet and Enjolras.

“You know I can only read a little,” the companion said. “Tell me what’s on it—just names?”

“Just names,” Tharaud confirmed irritably. “Do you bring this to your employer now?”

“Not yet,” said the other man. “I want to be sure it’s sound. Last time I acted on your information, the police interrupted a _play._ ”

“Don’t be a fool. It was no play.”

“May as well have been, for all the good it did me.”

The two men walked down the street and passed out of sight.

“So it’s Tharaud,” Bossuet said grimly. “I suppose we can go now.”

He made as if to move, but Enjolras held him back. “We should stay for the rest of our shift, and Courfeyrac and Bahorel should take theirs,” he said. “It is just possible that Saussine is _also_ a spy.”

Bossuet gave a heartfelt groan, but obeyed.

The back room of the Musain was very quiet that evening. Only the principal members of their circle were present, and none were cheerful.

Saussine had not incriminated himself, but Tharaud’s betrayal stung. Courfeyrac paced furiously. Joly tried to soothe him, to no avail. “But _why?_ ” Courfeyrac demanded. “If he needed money, if he even _wanted_ money, he could always---”

“Greed,” Bahorel said. “Or spite. Or maybe even politics.”

Bossuet stared into his wineglass. “Not need, at any rate,” he said. “You’ve seen his apartment, Courfeyrac. He’s not betraying us so he can eat.”

“We must discuss what to do about this,” Combeferre said.

“First we must discuss how we decide such things,” said Bahorel. “We’ve been very informal, but that won’t do any more. We’re a larger group now and the stakes are higher. We need a chief. We need a clear idea of who gets information and instructions from whom.”

They all digested this. Joly looked at Enjolras, then at Bahorel. “One of you two should be the chief,” he said.

Bahorel laughed. “Not me,” he said. “A chief must plan. I do not plan.”

“You do,” Enjolras said. “You’re far better at it than you pretend.”

Bahorel made a face. “I can if I must, but you and Combeferre enjoy it. Whenever something unbearably tedious must be done, you’re always volunteering to do it. You both have already been doing the work of a chief—for our group, anyway. Courfeyrac’s obviously been chief of his.”

Courfeyrac grinned. “Yes,” he said, “but I prefer improvisation to planning.” He studied Enjolras and Combeferre for a long moment. Then he shared a look with Bossuet.

Finally Courfeyrac said, to Enjolras and Combeferre, “I am happy to follow one of you and let you have the final word…but, mind you, I intend to have plenty of words _before_ the final word.” He gave them a smile that managed to be both warm and wicked.

Bossuet fiddled with his wineglass. “If Courfeyrac is content with that, then so am I.”

“Have as many words as you’d like,” Combeferre said. “Everyone must have a voice; our chief must not be a tyrant. Not that you’d want to, Enjolras.”

Enjolras raised his eyebrows. He was willing to serve as chief, but Combeferre had an equal right to claim that role if he wished. “You and I work best together in a particular way,” Combeferre said, in response to Enjolras’s look. “I will happily draw your eye to possibilities you miss, but you should be the one to decide.”

Enjolras considered this. Combeferre was undeniably most in his element seeing all angles of a question, rather than choosing one course of action. He was capable of both, but his instincts were those of a sage, not a judge.

“We should take a vote,” said Enjolras. The vote was taken and, since the discussion had produced a resolution, came back unanimous. “We should also have some sort of agreement about why, and how, you might replace me if you wish,” Enjolras pointed out.

Courfeyrac brightened. He pulled out a notebook and began scribbling. Enjolras could see across the table that Courfeyrac had written _Reasons for Ousting Enjolras_ at the top of the page. “Reason number one,” Courfeyrac said gravely, still scribbling. “Failure to appreciate Courfeyrac’s puns. This will result in Enjolras’s prompt removal as chief.” Joly looked over his shoulder, snickering.

“Courfeyrac,” Combeferre said warningly. “This is serious.”

“Reason number two,” Courfeyrac said. “Allowing Combeferre to be a wet-blanket.” He wrote that down as well.

“We will remove you by vote of everyone in this room right now—and anyone else who reaches our level of trust—if we feel it’s necessary,” Bahorel said, his mouth twitching.

“That is reasonable,” Combeferre said.

“We also need to keep testing people even after drawing them in,” Enjolras added, “as we said before.”

“False assignments every so often, that sort of thing?” Bossuet asked. Enjolras nodded.

“That’s all well and good, for people at Tharaud’s level,” Bahorel said, “but we should all understand that there is ultimately no testing anyone in this room right now.”

Everyone looked at Bahorel questioningly.

Bahorel gave a short laugh. “How are you, Enjolras, ever going to test Combeferre? If the world goes mad and Combeferre becomes a spy, then likely you are one, too. How do you check up on Courfeyrac, without trusting someone who is probably loyal to Courfeyrac in any case?”

“But that’s nonsense,” Courfeyrac said, indignant. “We all know…”

“Yes,” Bahorel said. “We all know we can trust each other. And so we’re all completely at each other’s mercy. Anyone who can’t accept that risk should leave now. There’s no shame in it, and there will be no hard feelings—provided you do so honestly, and the sooner the better.”

“Life is risk,” Bossuet said, after a brief silence. “We’re all at fortune’s mercy, so why should it be so terrible to be at each other’s? I’ve always been lucky in my friends, if nothing else.”

Joly slung an arm around Bossuet’s shoulders. “We should have a name,” he said with artificial brightness, trying to lighten the mood. “Friends of…of Something,” Joly finished, anti-climactically.

“We must do better than that,” Courfeyrac said.

“More urgently,” Enjolras said, “we must decide what to do about Tharaud.” He turned to Bahorel. “How have you dealt with spies in the past?”

Bahorel’s face went impassive. “What—and _who_ \--does Tharaud know about?”

“Besides us?” Bossuet said. “He knows Madame Laurent, our printer. Who, incidentally, has three children. He knows a few workers who are ringleaders in their own groups. All have wives and children. He knows enough to ruin entire families, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“It is,” Bahorel said. "There is the extreme answer," he continued, after a moment. His voice was unnervingly quiet. "Get him drunk, take him into an alley and, well. Make it look like a robbery gone wrong."

Enjolras looked at him. "Are you volunteering for that duty?" 

"If you order it," Bahorel said, "then yes." 

"I will not order such a thing," Enjolras said, raising his chin. "I will do it myself if necessary, but to have you do it--no." 

"I have done it before." Bahorel's voice was still eerily subdued. "It is a hard thing. I would spare you that, Enjolras." 

Enjolras covered Bahorel's hand with his own. "I will not allow you to spare me anything." He looked to the others around the table. Joly looked pensive, Bossuet somber. Combeferre was plainly stricken. Courfeyrac's eyes had a cold sparkle, like icicles in the sunlight, which at once reassured and distressed Enjolras. Coldness could be necessary, but in Courfeyrac it was awful.

“Even if we did that,” Enjolras said after a moment, “we would still have a problem, since we don’t know what Tharaud has already told that ruffian, or what _he_ told the police. He may have already incriminated some of our friends.”

Enjolras paused, not liking what he was about to suggest. Shadowy intrigue repulsed him. He could not help feeling that anything that could not be done in the sunlight should not be done at all.

But that was an impossible wish for revolutionaries under a near-absolute monarchy. They had to work in the shadows because the shadows were everywhere. There were only small patches of sunlight, affording no space to live or work.

“Can we discredit him?” Enjolras finally said. “We could give him false information that he takes back to whoever pays him, and make sure they find out it’s false.”

“Then they will distrust anything he told them before,” Combeferre said slowly. “That could succeed. But we would need to make sure Tharaud’s false information is truly outlandish. He must appear completely unreliable.”

“Outlandish, did you say?” Courfeyrac’s voice was light. “Leave that to me—though I will need your help, my dear eagle.”

“Of course,” Bossuet said.

“I believe I know how to make Tharaud’s friend think he has been shamefully played for a fool.” The frosty glitter was back in Courfeyrac’s eyes. “He’ll be very angry, no doubt.”

For one disconcerting moment, Enjolras felt almost frightened of Courfeyrac.

“That is a point,” Combeferre said, looking at Enjolras. “You realize this may be no kinder than Bahorel’s ‘extreme answer’? It may still result in Tharaud’s murder.”

“Yes,” Enjolras said, gripping the table’s edge. “Still, we shall do it.”

Combeferre looked as if Enjolras had struck him in the face. Enjolras flinched. He instinctively stretched his hand out to Combeferre, who took it but shook his head. “No, you are right,” Combeferre said. “I…I cannot say I like it, but it is necessary.”

Bossuet was watching them curiously. “You do remember the long list of people Tharaud is endangering,” he said.

Enjolras nodded. “Let us plan this.”

Courfeyrac sketched out a drama that would convince Tharaud’s companion of his perfidy. The rest of them interceded in spots—Enjolras and Combeferre to make logistical tweaks, Joly to point out risks, Bossuet to fix holes in the story they were to feed the ruffian.

“But how,” Enjolras asked, after all was settled, “are we to get this story to Tharaud? If we tell him outright, he may be suspicious. It is unconnected to his normal duties, and the last piece of irrelevant information he received proved to be of dubious value to him.”

“I have an idea about that, Enjolras,” Bossuet said. “But I suspect you will not like it.”

“You want me to play the faithless drunk, hmm?” Grantaire said later, when he made his nightly appearance at the Musain. “Pretend to drop secrets to this Tharaud while in the sweet grip of Bacchus? Anyone would believe that. I would not even need to act a part.” He looked almost hurt.

Enjolras felt a flash of pity. “It would help us, Grantaire.”

“ _You_ want my help,” Grantaire said, his eyes trailing down Enjolras’s body. Exerting his will, Enjolras managed not to squirm under Grantaire’s gaze. “I never dared even to dream of such a thing. That would be hubris! But of course I will help you. I will serve you in any way you wish, however humbly.”

“We are grateful,” Combeferre interposed, perhaps sensing Enjolras’s discomfort. “Let us explain what we need you to say.”

Combeferre stopped in Enjolras’s apartment when they went home that night. Enjolras did not want to be without him, somehow, and Combeferre seemed disinclined to be alone as well.

Sitting on his bed, Enjolras felt Combeferre's hands press against his tensed shoulders. "You are positively rigid," Combeferre said. 

Enjolras sighed, leaning into the touch. "I fear I am more unsettled by our plan for Tharaud than I should be," he said. 

"No," Combeferre said firmly, though his fingers were gentle as they worked against Enjolras's muscles. "You made the right decision, but you must never take such things lightly.” 

"The necessary decision," Enjolras said, “not the right one. You would not have done the same." 

Combeferre's hands moved up to Enjolras's neck. "That does not mean you were wrong," Combeferre said. 

Enjolras reached up to briefly clasp Combeferre's hand. "Forgive me," he said. Despite necessity, Enjolras felt sure he had committed a wrong, against his ideals and against Combeferre. 

He felt Combeferre's lips brush the top of his head. "There is nothing to forgive, my friend." Combeferre's voice was impossibly tender; it made Enjolras want to weep. He knew he had wounded Combeferre, and yet Combeferre was still by his side. Enjolras could not hope to deserve such loyalty. He could only hold it sacred. 

Combeferre's fingers worked upwards into his scalp, buried beneath his hair. Enjolras relaxed almost without volition. 

Eventually he drew Combeferre's hands away, holding them in his own. "It is late," Enjolras said. "If you do not mind," he continued, very tentatively, "perhaps you could spend the night here. Your company would be most welcome." 

"Of course." Combeferre's face was nakedly affectionate. Overwhelmed, Enjolras bowed his head. After a moment, he felt Combeferre stroke his hair. "Let us go to bed, Enjolras. I can see how tired you are."

Once in bed, Combeferre wordlessly pulled Enjolras close, and Enjolras's arms gratefully encircled him. He fell asleep like that, his chin resting on Combeferre's head. 

In the morning Enjolras woke to see Combeferre already dressing. The light from the window splashed against the bare skin above his half-open shirt. His hair was falling into his eyes as he bent to fasten the shirt and fumble with his cravat.

Enjolras rose and went to Combeferre, reaching out to brush the hair from his eyes and finish tying the cravat for him. "How shall I ever thank you?" 

"For what?" Combeferre said, smiling. "Being your friend? Standing beside you, even when you do things I wish you would not, things I wish you did not have to do? That is my honor. Any comfort I give you is small recompense for the clarity and joy you bring to me." 

Perhaps it was Courfeyrac's influence, but Enjolras could not help it: he embraced Combeferre fiercely. 

He felt Combeferre chuckle against his shoulder. "Courfeyrac is a contagious disease," Combeferre murmured. 

Releasing him, Enjolras smiled. “I will tell him you said that,” he mock-threatened.

“I’ve told him so myself,” Combeferre said, pulling on his waistcoat and coat. “I must go now. I have a class.” And with a final press of Enjolras’s hand, he was gone.

That evening Enjolras, Combeferre and Courfeyrac went to the little-used warehouse where they would stage their performance. Grantaire had sworn that he had leaked the misinformation to Tharaud as instructed. Joly confirmed this, having been sitting in the Musain a discreet distance away as Grantaire pretended to drunkenly blurt out their secrets.

Combeferre joined Bahorel, who was lurking outside the warehouse. Enjolras and Courfeyrac went in, tucked themselves between a shelf and a wall, and waited.

After about fifteen minutes, they heard a pattern of thumps against the outside wall: Bahorel, signaling Bossuet’s arrival.

“Ah,” whispered Courfeyrac, “our eagle has landed.”

There was a wait of uncertain length before they heard another thump.

The ruffian who was Tharaud’s companion from the other day entered, bearing a light. He glanced over the shelves, seeing pamphlets and notebooks there. The flickering light showed a pleased look on his face.

The look changed to puzzlement as Bossuet stumbled in, hand in hand with a grisette—one Citoyenne Charpentier, Enjolras vaguely recalled, a friend of Courfeyrac and Bossuet.

Tharaud’s companion barely had time to stare blankly at Bossuet and Citoyenne Charpentier before Combeferre made his entrance.

“Oh, good evening, Bossuet, what are you doing here?” Combeferre said, blinking owlishly. “I told you I was going to pick up the school materials.”

Tharaud’s companion frowned. “ _School materials_?”

Combeferre started, as if noticing Tharaud’s companion for the first time. “Why, yes,” he said, beaming like a benign professor. “Are you interested in children’s education? Excellent! The future belongs to the schoolmaster, you know. I have some pamphlets and books here you might want to read, we always welcome new enthusiasts--”

“Children’s education?” Tharaud’s companion echoed.

“Yes,” Combeferre said. He looked in surprise at Citoyenne Charpentier. “Wait—Mademoiselle, I thought you were particular friends with _Tharaud_?” He glared at Bossuet. “Really, Bossuet, does Tharaud know you’ve seduced his mistress?”

“Tharaud’s mistress?” Tharaud’s companion parroted, looking more dismayed by the second.

“Oh, do you know Tharaud?” Combeferre asked innocently.

“I’m not his mistress anymore,” retorted Citoyenne Charpentier. “I threw him over a few days ago.”

“I thought you a better friend than that, Bossuet,” Combeferre said, shaking his head. Bossuet looked shame-faced.

“Hold on,” Tharaud’s companion said. “You’re telling me all this,” he gestured at the pamphlets and books, “is just for _educating children_?”

“Well, yes,” Combeferre projected an air of mild confusion. “Look.” He took down a book and opened it.

Tharaud’s companion peered closely at the book, and saw that it was plainly a tale for children. He frowned and snatched a few pamphlets from a shelf. Staring at them for a few long moments, his glare grew more pronounced as he realized that they all concerned the best methods of teaching children reading and arithmetic. “So this isn’t, you know, _political_?”

“Political?” Combeferre repeated. “Oh, no. Did you think it was? How odd. Who gave you that idea?”

The ruffian’s eyes slid over to Bossuet, still holding hands with Citoyenne Charpentier. He scowled. “And this girl here used to be Tharaud’s mistress? Until this fellow seduced her?”

“I wouldn’t say _seduced_ ,” Citoyenne Charpentier said.

Tharaud’s companion swore at no one in particular and stormed out the door.

They all waited several minutes before falling out of their roles. Enjolras and Courfeyrac slid out from behind the shelf, and Bahorel came inside.

“He seemed upset,” Combeferre noted unnecessarily.

“He thinks Tharaud was trying to use him to set the police on a rival under false pretenses, by taking advantage of his poor reading. As far as he knows, Tharaud thought he wouldn’t know a political tract from a grammar lesson, and exploited that to make him a cat’s paw, so Tharaud could pursue a personal grudge.” Courfeyrac gave a lazy shrug. “That would tend to hurt one’s feelings.”

Bahorel said, “I think this was a success. He won’t be trusting Tharaud’s information anymore.”

“No,” Bossuet said. “Grantaire told Tharaud this was a storage place for all sorts of illicit supplies. I doubt this man was happy to find a children’s version of Little Red Riding Hood instead.” He turned to Citoyenne Charpentier. “I forget--have you even _met_ Tharaud?”

“No,” she replied. “I hope this fellow doesn’t investigate that closely.”

“Oh, somehow I don’t think he will,” Courfeyrac said. “Thank you very much for playing your part, Suzette.”

“Indeed, thank you, citoyenne,” Enjolras echoed politely.

They left the warehouse, Combeferre looking worried. Enjolras guessed Tharaud’s fate weighed on him, but did not know how to comfort him.

Courfeyrac looked shrewdly at Combeferre before complaining, “That hiding place behind the shelf was awfully cramped. I’m sure I have a bruise on my chest from where your elbow was sticking into me, Enjolras. Why must you have such a pointy elbow?”

“It is an elbow,” Enjolras said reasonably. “Of course it is pointy.”

“Yours is particularly so,” Courfeyrac grumbled.

“You kept fidgeting and stepping on my foot, but you don’t hear me complaining about it,” Enjolras said, nettled.

“You just did,” Courfeyrac said, as if he had scored a victory.

Combeferre was now surveying them like an indulgent schoolmaster burdened with high-spirited pupils. “Perhaps we _are_ a society for the education of children,” he murmured. Courfeyrac glared at him.

“Stop whining, Courfeyrac,” Bahorel ordered. “You had no reason even to be there tonight other than to gratify your curiosity. Enjolras and I were enough security in case Tharaud’s friend became violent.”

Courfeyrac kept grousing, however, and after a moment Bossuet added his own sarcastic litany. Combeferre, distracted by their nonsense, lost his look of worry entirely.

Enjolras did not see any of their group until the next evening at the Musain. Grantaire was already there when Enjolras arrived. “Thank you,” Enjolras said. “You were most helpful.” He was about to put a hand on Grantaire’s shoulder, but stopped—this was Grantaire. Enjolras did not wish to mislead.

“It was only a meager offering from a lowly mortal,” Grantaire said, making an extravagant, sweeping gesture with his arm. “I would do far more for you if you wished it.”

“We would always welcome any genuine efforts to assist us, Grantaire,” Enjolras said, feeling a sudden anger. “You must know that. If you ever put down that bottle and joined us, instead of railing about our uselessness—we would truly welcome it.”

Grantaire simply looked at him, taking another swig from his glass. Enjolras turned away after a moment, moving to the far corner of the room.

Bossuet intercepted him before he reached Combeferre’s table. “Tharaud was brought into Necker today,” he said. “Badly beaten. He likely will not survive, or so Combeferre says.”

Enjolras felt the blood drain from his face.

“Joly was upset,” Bossuet said. “I think Combeferre is even more so. They actually saw him—apparently it was a wretched sight. But we did right, Enjolras. _You_ decided right. Joly knows that, and I’d wager Combeferre does too. Tharaud was a spy, a traitor. Innocents would have been ruined because of him.”

“What I decided was necessary,” Enjolras said, “but not right.”

Bossuet shook his head. "How can something necessary be wrong?" 

"The necessity itself is monstrous.” 

“True, but you did not create the necessity, nor are you capable of removing it." 

"I obeyed it,” Enjolras said. “Anyone who does so must be tainted by it.” 

Bossuet looked at Enjolras with something suspiciously like pity. "Combeferre is the gentlest man I know," he said, "and you are the severest. Between your principles and his compassion, you will give yourselves a merry hell over this, I can see that. You are making this much harder for yourselves than it will be for me. I can't pretend I will sleep well tonight. What we did was awful, no question. But for human beings, necessity makes right. I know you refuse to agree. Perhaps that's your strength." Bossuet reached over to lay a hand on Enjolras's shoulder. "But if I may say so, it looks to me more like a self-inflicted curse."

Enjolras forced a smile. “Joly is bearing it well?”

“Yes,” Bossuet said. “I think I cheered him—it is good to feel that I can do that, at least, for him. I don’t feel such a poor excuse for a friend if I can make him smile.”

Enjolras looked over at Combeferre, slumped against his chair. “You should go to him,” Bossuet said.

“I fear my presence will only make it worse.” Would Combeferre even want to look at the man responsible for the brutality he had seen?

“It will not,” Bossuet said. “Do not let your false guilt stop you from helping him.”

He gave Enjolras a light shove in Combeferre’s direction, before rejoining Joly, Bahorel and Grantaire at their table.

Enjolras hesitated, then marched forward.

Combeferre looked at Enjolras blearily before stretching out his hand, like a stumbling man reaching for something to halt his fall. Enjolras took it without a word.

Courfeyrac came over, probably to make some witticism, but saw their expressions, and closed his mouth. Instead, he slid an arm around Combeferre’s shoulders, sitting next to him. Combeferre leaned into Courfeyrac, and tightened his grip on Enjolras’s hand, and the three of them remained in silence until the evening turned to night. 

By the next night Tharaud had died in Necker. The mood in the back room of the Musain was determinedly light that night, thanks to the concerted efforts of Courfeyrac, Bossuet and Joly.

“It occurs to me that we still need a name,” Courfeyrac said. “I refuse to be part of Les Amis de Quelque Chose. It lacks inspiration, somehow.”

“It should be something we can pretend is innocent,” Bahorel said.

"I have an idea," Enjolras said. He found paper and wrote down the following: _Les Amis de l'ABC._ Combeferre looked over his shoulder, took a moment to puzzle it out, and groaned. 

Passing the paper to Joly, Bossuet and Courfeyrac, Enjolras explained, "We will stick to the story that we are interested in the education of children. That should be easy enough, since Combeferre loves the subject in any case. And only we and our allies will know that our true purpose is the _abaissé_ \--that is, the whole nation of France." 

Bossuet stared at the paper. "You made a _pun_ ," he said. He handed the paper to Joly, who examined it as if he thought it might be a supernaturally clever forgery. Then he and Bossuet favored Enjolras with matching triumphant grins. 

"Your influence has evidently corrupted me," Enjolras murmured, not troubling to hide his smile. 

Courfeyrac crowed with delight. "Enjolras made a pun!" Standing, he began some sort of victory dance around the table. Joly and Bossuet lost no time in enthusiastically joining him. "We have a convert!” 

"Now look what you've done," Combeferre said. "They'll be insufferable from now on." 

"Yes," Enjolras said, his smile growing in spite of himself. "I expect they will."


	5. Feuilly, 1827

“I wodder if the police will really bake a scene at the fuderal,” Joly said, sniffling.

Enjolras could see that Joly was in terrible spirits. For one thing, Bossuet was not there. He had to go pay his seamstress’s bill so she would fix the gaping holes in all his waistcoats—including the two he had borrowed from Joly, each of which had gotten torn mere hours after Bossuet donned it. 

For another, Joly had caught a cold that very morning. But the cold had its silver lining: it irrefutably existed, as evidenced by frequent coughs and sneezes, an inability to pronounce the letters ‘m’ and ‘n,’ and a flame-red nose. Joly could not be accused of inventing _this_ cold. He could revel in his bona fide illness. 

“That’s what the whispers say,” Bahorel said, with shameless glee. “The authorities are _very_ scared that Liancourt’s old students will be too enthusiastic in their show of respect for him.” He stretched his arms out. “Fools. They’ll end up creating the problem they’re running from.”

“You think there will be a riot,” Enjolras said. He looked out of the quiet café’s window at the Église de la Madeleine, a short distance away.

 _Something_ was likely to happen, whether it became a full-fledged riot or not. That was why he, Joly and Bahorel were there. _Somethings_ , whether they were demonstrations, or riots, or some mixture of the two, could be excellent opportunities to observe the mood of the city and identify those who shared their sympathies, or who could be persuaded to do so.

They could also be excellent opportunities to be hit in the face with a thrown stone, but as Bossuet said, life was risk. 

This particular _something_ revolved around the funeral of the liberal Duc de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, to be held that day. The government was less than enamored of the dead man. It was also exceedingly distressed by the prospect of a demonstration by workingmen who were former pupils of the École d’Arts et Métiers, the school founded by La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt.

Meanwhile, the workingmen were exceedingly distressed by a number of the government’s policies, as well as desirous of honoring their deceased ally. And Bahorel was not at all distressed by the prospect of a conflict between the government and the workers flaring up into a riot.

“Very likely,” Bahorel said. He craned his neck to see out the window. “Enjolras, I think the procession is about to leave the church—we should move, if we are going to see what happens.”

The three made their way onto the street. Turning towards La Madeleine, they saw La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt’s coffin being born out on the shoulders of eight solemn-faced workingmen, who had received permission from the dead man’s family to honor him in this way. As the bearers marched along the Place de la Madeleine, Enjolras heard a woman whisper, “I heard a commissaire tried to stop them from bearing the coffin! Inside the church, if you can believe it!”

Enjolras looked at Bahorel, who gave a wolfish grin. Joly frowned and rubbed his nose against the knob of his cane. Bahorel clapped Joly on the shoulder. “Don’t worry,” he said, in as close to a whisper as Bahorel ever got, “punching gendarmes is good for your health.”

Bahorel’s nose for an émeute was exquisitely precise. The police followed along with the procession as it went down the Rue Royale. The coffin bearers had no sooner reached the Rue Saint-Honoré than the police fell upon them.

And suddenly, the coffin bearers were at the center of a riot. Enjolras, Joly and Bahorel made their way to the coffin as speedily as they could, which was not very speedily since many others on the street had the same idea. The air was thick with shouts and the occasional stone.

“The police are acting in concert,” Enjolras said, in Bahorel’s ear. “They were given orders. This isn’t just some hotheaded fool starting a scuffle.”

As they came closer to the coffin, they heard a gasp go up from the crowd, followed by a sharp crack.

“His body!” someone shouted, above the general din. “You policemen are savages! Where is your respect for the dead?”

“Oh, hell,” Joly said. “Did they—”

“Drop the coffin?” a broad-shouldered young grisette standing near them said. “It does sound like it.”

“Idiots,” Bahorel said. “Policemen are mostly fools, of course, but surely even they can manage to understand that if you attack people who are holding a coffin, they will _drop the coffin._ ” 

By standing on his toes and stretching his neck to look over the crowd, Enjolras could see the dead man’s family placing his body in its cracked coffin on the funeral-car. 

The crowd was expressing its moral disapproval of the police in the traditional fashion of profanities and projectiles. “This looks promising,” the broad-shouldered woman spoke up again. There was now a paving stone in her hands.

Bahorel looked at her and grinned. “Indeed it does, Mademoiselle,” he said. “I congratulate you on your excellent taste. If you are heading in that direction, would you do me the honor of allowing me to accompany you?”

The woman looked him up and down before smiling. “By all means, Monsieur,” she said.

Enjolras met Joly’s dancing eyes. Bahorel had recently parted company with his mistress. Apparently he was on the lookout for a replacement and considered a riot a proper place to find one.

Which, since this was Bahorel, it probably was.

Bahorel looked at Enjolras before going, to confirm that Enjolras had no plan that required Bahorel to stay. Enjolras simply nodded, his mouth twitching.

Joly said something barely intelligible that Enjolras translated after a moment as, “Only Bahorel.”

The riot was thickening on one side of the street. The other side was mostly populated by those who were trying to leave, but some of the police were pursuing them. In the midst of the chaos, Enjolras could see a stocky man in a gray cap, giving directions of some sort. Enjolras could not hear what he said, but he and the four men closest to him moved into some kind of organized formation between six policemen and the people attempting escape. They began to fend off the police, to allow the people behind them to flee. 

Enjolras looked at Joly. “I am going in to help them,” he said, gesturing, “but you need not come. Go back to the Musain. Bossuet will likely be there.”

Joly rubbed his nose against the knob of his cane. “Dod be silly,” he said thickly, “of course I’ll cob.”

Joly and Enjolras pushed their way through. “Here to help?” asked the stocky man in the gray cap, when he saw them. His formation now included ten people.

In answer, Enjolras did a sweeping kick that took the feet out from under a policeman who was charging at them with more energy than skill.

“I take it that means yes,” said the man, blocking a punch. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, citizens.” 

Joly, who was vigorously hitting a policeman with his cane, suddenly found himself in a clumsy tug-of-war with the policeman over said cane. The stocky man in the gray cap ended the contest with a well-placed right hook. “Thaks very buch!” Joly said brightly.

The street behind them emptied fast. Nearly everyone present had either thrown themselves into the fray on the street’s opposite side, or escaped to safer territory. In a brief lull in the fight, Enjolras risked a _very_ quick look behind him. As he turned back to the policemen in front of him, he saw a fist coming at his face.

That was an unpleasant sight, but less pleasant still was the sight that followed: the back of Joly’s head, as Joly had thrust himself between Enjolras and the person connected to the fist.

The fist connected with Joly’s jaw. Joly made a sound that, while not exactly a word, nevertheless managed to clearly express pain. Enjolras caught him as he reeled backwards, and began to drag him from the fighting. 

At a word from the stocky man, his formation dispersed, since there was no one left trying to escape. The stocky man himself saw Enjolras trying to drag Joly away as gently as possible, and came to his aid. “I’m Feuilly, by the way,” he said. 

“I’m Enjolras, and this is Joly,” said Enjolras.

A stone hurtled through the air at Enjolras, Feuilly and Joly. Enjolras did not see it until half a second before it would have hit Feuilly’s skull, which Enjolras later decided was a valid excuse for reacting with more speed than intelligence. His hand shot out and _caught_ the stone.

Enjolras bit back a cry of pain. The stone was smaller than a paving stone, but had been flung with great force.

“Thank you,” Feuilly said. “I did not see that coming. But you have smashed up your hand nicely.”

Three fingers on Enjolras’s right hand were indeed rapidly swelling and turning a vivid shade of purple.

“It is no matter,” Enjolras said. “Let us see to Joly—here—” They pulled him off the Rue Saint-Honoré, onto a quieter street.

Joly was frighteningly dizzy. Enjolras tilted his head up to look at the bruise on his jaw, feeling a jolt of terrified affection for this gallant hypochondriac. 

“Thank you,” Enjolras murmured. Joly managed a smile in response.

“I will help you get him to a doctor,” Feuilly said, to Enjolras’s intense gratitude. 

They found a fiacre. The ride was too bumpy for Enjolras’s comfort: who knew what it was doing to Joly’s head? He did his best to hold Joly steady, but that only helped a little.

“He will be all right,” Feuilly said.

Enjolras tried to smile, and changed the subject. “Are you a former pupil of the École d’Arts et Métiers?”

“No,” said Feuilly, “I never went to any kind of school. But I admired Liancourt’s work. Not just for what he did in France, but also his interest in learning what he could of other nations.” 

“You take an interest in England, then?” Enjolras asked, vaguely surprised. Liancourt had written of England, but was mostly respected for his work in France.

“Not England so much,” Feuilly said, growing more animated, “but I believe we in France who wish for more…reforms…” he threw a glance in the direction of the fiacre driver, but evidently decided that the noise of travel made it safe to speak in a very low tone, and perhaps also that Enjolras was likely trustworthy because he had just been hitting policemen. “…cannot ignore the plight of other peoples. We must learn from those who have achieved freedom, and do what we can to help those who have not. We cannot think only of our own country’s liberty, because those in other countries are our brothers, and all tyrants join hands across borders to subjugate the peoples—”

Here Feuilly broke off, perhaps conscious that he was making an impromptu speech. He coughed, looking slightly embarrassed. When Enjolras, who wished he would continue, kept looking at him expectantly, Feuilly went on, though with his voice even lower than it had been. “Didn’t the counterrevolutionary activities of the emigrés teach us that? Kings will always help each other because their power relies on the same rotten foundation. They see, in a threat to Louis Capet, a threat to Leopold II and Frederick William II. And they are correct! So Citoyen Capet flees to Varennes, hoping for succor from his fellow despots. The Congress of Vienna furthers the work of 1772 in butchering Poland, but it harms France as well. It harms all the peoples, when kings and princes gather to divide the world between them like a cake. No, everyone must have a country, and it must be _his_ country—he must have a say in its governance, with no homegrown or foreign king imposed upon him.”

Enjolras was intrigued. He had utterly forgotten the throbbing pain in his hand. His worry for Joly still haunted every thought, but did not stop him from _having_ thoughts about what Feuilly had just said. Enjolras had always wished everyone liberty, and known vaguely that liberty could spread from one country to the next, but his passion was for France in particular. The counterrevolutionary plots of foreigners and treacherous French aristocrats had seemed like a reason why a new French Republic would need to be strong in its defenses. But for Feuilly, such dangers were a reason to look outward rather than inward. There was something inspiring about that. 

But at this juncture they reached the Musain, and Enjolras could no longer contemplate “the peoples” that Feuilly spoke of so vehemently, because he had to assist the particular dear and half-conscious person who was leaning on his shoulder.

“Joly!” Bossuet cried, as Enjolras and Feuilly helped him into the Musain’s back room.

“I'b all right,” Joly said. “’Dot hurt.”

Bossuet found this less than persuasive. He and Enjolras sat Joly down in a chair.

“This is Citoyen Feuilly,” Enjolras said, and pointed out everyone in the room to Feuilly. “He was kind enough to help me take Joly away from the fighting—Liancourt’s funeral turned into a riot, and Joly took a punch meant for me.”

Combeferre, coming over from the corner where he had evidently been tending to Courfeyrac (who had somehow hurt his ankle), swiftly took charge. After asking several terse questions about what exactly happened, looking in Joly’s eyes, checking the bruise on his jaw, and making him open and close his mouth, Combeferre went to get ice wrapped in a cloth. He returned and instructed Bossuet to hold the ice to Joly’s jaw.

Then Combeferre turned his attention to Enjolras, who began to feel the way he did as a boy at school when the master caught him daydreaming.

“What happened to your hand?”

Feuilly answered. “Citoyen Enjolras caught a stone that was flying at my head—he probably saved me a serious injury…”

Combeferre looked from Feuilly to Enjolras. "You _caught_ it," he repeated, with a look on his face that he usually reserved for Courfeyrac's most flamboyant silliness. "I see. Perhaps you mistook it for a ball? Did you think someone was trying to start a friendly game of catch?"

Enjolras reflected that he probably deserved that.

"Thank God," Courfeyrac broke in. "I was beginning to tire of being the sole target for Combeferre's verbal darts."

Combeferre immediately looked contrite. "I'm very sorry, my friend," he said, gently turning over Enjolras's swollen hand to examine the injury. "I should not be sharp with you—you must be in pain."

"I notice that you never apologized for being sharp with _me_ , though _I_ am in pain," Courfeyrac harrumphed.

"Good, I am glad you noticed," Combeferre said calmly. "I should hate for you to think that I'm even slightly sorry for that.” He ignored Courfeyrac’s glare. “Enjolras, I think two of your fingers are fractured. I will need to splint them. I have the proper materials at home, so we’ll have to go back there.”

"Very well,” Enjolras said. “How did you hurt your ankle, Courfeyrac?"

"Well," Courfeyrac said, looking as sheepish as possible for Courfeyrac, "my mistress's husband nearly caught me in her bedroom, and—"

"You can stop right there," Bossuet said. "Any story that begins with the words 'my mistress's husband' can only end in highly predictable farce."

"You find my torment farcical, Bossuet?" Courfeyrac pouted. “I had to flee her house through a side door, only I tripped and twisted my ankle as I was hastening down the street. I fell flat in the dirt on the road—my coat got filthy, I hope it isn’t ruined—and I lay there till a fiacre driver kindly rescued me.”

"A married woman," Bossuet said, shaking his head in a grave show of thoroughly insincere disapproval. "Courfeyrac, you should take greater care whom you seduce."

"She seduced _me_!" Courfeyrac protested. "I am not always the corrupter, you know!"

"You need not have complied," Combeferre said sternly.

“No,” Courfeyrac said, grinning, “but I wanted to, and she wanted me to. By the way, that reminds me—I left in such a hurry that I left my hat there, and also that book you lent me. The translation of that Polish fellow’s biography of Kościuszko.”

Feuilly came alive with avid interest. “Kościuszko? You are talking of Niemcewicz’s biography? You have a French translation?”

“Yes,” Courfeyrac said, with a winning smile. “You are most welcome to borrow it, if you’d like, I can pick it up from my mistress’s house tomorrow—”

“No, you can’t,” Combeferre said. “You will be sitting down and keeping your foot up tomorrow, not traipsing around the city. Unless,” he said, quelling Courfeyrac’s attempt at protest with a look, “you want to be unable to walk properly for more than a week.”

Courfeyrac sighed. “Very well, then. You can…” He was suddenly overcome with a cough.

In a flash, Enjolras guessed why he had broken off. Courfeyrac’s mistress was likely bourgeois, perhaps aristocratic. A worker like Feuilly might not be able to get the book from her without her servants showing him the door.

“Where does your mistress live, Courfeyrac?” Enjolras asked.

Courfeyrac finished coughing. “Well. The Faubourg Saint-Germain, actually.”

Bossuet guffawed. “Did you seduce a duchess, Monsieur de Courfeyrac?”

“First of all, a gentleman never tells. Second of all, she seduced _me_ , as I already said. And third of all, if you throw the particle at me again, I will write ‘Long live Charles X’ on your bald spot the next time I catch you passed out from drink. And you won’t even realize it until everyone has seen it, because how often do you hold a mirror to your bald spot?”

“…I will do so with religious discipline from now on,” Bossuet said.

“I would tell Bossuet if you did that,” Joly pointed out, his voice still weak.

“I will be in that area tomorrow,” Enjolras said composedly. Combeferre quirked an eyebrow at him, since Enjolras could have no business in an aristocratic enclave. But Feuilly did not know that. “I can easily get the book, if Courfeyrac trusts in my discretion sufficiently to give me the address, and Citoyen Feuilly can come to the Musain tomorrow night to get it from me.”

“I would not like to put you to any difficulties,” Feuilly said.

“It is no difficulty at all, and you have helped me and my friend, so it would in fact be a pleasure.”

“That is most kind of you, then,” Feuilly said, with a touch of shyness. 

“Bossuet, you should take Joly home,” Combeferre said. “Courfeyrac, I’ll help you…but wait, I also have to take Enjolras to my apartment so I can put the splint—”

“Take Courfeyrac home,” Enjolras said. “My hand can wait.”

“I could help if you need it,” Feuilly suggested, his voice suddenly gone uncertain. “I mean…you’ll just need someone to help you into the fiacre, really…”

“And into my apartment, since I live on the third floor, and hopping on one foot up the stairs would be tiresome, and probably result in me falling and cracking my head open,” Courfeyrac said, with a dazzling smile. “If you could bear the inconvenience, I would be immensely grateful.”

Feuilly smiled for the first time since Enjolras encountered him at the funeral. It was a wary, guarded, slightly challenging sort of smile; it looked prepared to vanish into studied blankness at a moment’s notice. “It is no trouble,” he said.

“That helps matters greatly,” Combeferre said, with obvious relief. “Now, Joly, the next time you block a punch, please do it with something other than your head. Enjolras, do try to remember that despite your association with Courfeyrac, you are a man of intellect, and should know better than to catch thrown stones. Courfeyrac, stop seducing or letting yourself be seduced by married women, and you will suddenly find that you no longer need to put your limbs at risk by fleeing at great speed. Bossuet and Citoyen Feuilly, please follow my example and take the wounded in your charge to their homes, where their opportunities for further mischief will be greatly reduced."

There was a stunned silence after Combeferre had rattled all this off.

Courfeyrac, naturally, broke that silence. "Someday, Combeferre, you will do something inexcusably stupid," Courfeyrac said, "and I swear I will be there as witness."

Combeferre muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like "I befriended you, didn't I?"

Bossuet and Feuilly left to go hail fiacres, leaving Joly, Combeferre, Courfeyrac and Enjolras in the back room. “Enjolras, when you go about your nonexistent business among the aristocrats tomorrow, make sure you wear your least shabby clothing,” Courfeyrac said. “I’ll give you a note so her servants don’t turn you out, and here’s her name and address as well.”

Courfeyrac scribbled out the note and information, and handed it to Enjolras. “Go in the morning—her husband won’t be there to ask awkward questions. The thought of you in that den of high society tickles me, but I can see why you’d go out of your way to get this book for Feuilly. He’s obviously a kind fellow. I wonder why he got so excited about a Polish hero. I was mainly reading the book because Combeferre wielded Kościuszko to defeat me in some political argument, and of course I could not let him keep the last word.”

“Feuilly is very interested in events and politics outside France,” Enjolras said. “He was telling me about it on the ride over here.”

“An estimable interest,” Combeferre said. “It is so easy to become provincial. But one must fight that pull towards complacency and smallness. Curiosity about our fellow humans is vital.”

At that point Bossuet and Feuilly came back up the stairs, having found fiacres; they assisted Joly and Courfeyrac out the door. Combeferre and Enjolras followed, choosing to walk back to their building. “I’m sorry if I was acting like a querulous nursemaid,” Combeferre said wryly.

“You had provocation,” Enjolras smiled. “Few nursemaids have such troublesome charges.”

“Courfeyrac’s undoubtedly did,” Combeferre said, “though she probably made a pet of him despite his nonsense. If you’d like, I can get the book for Feuilly instead of you—I suspect you won’t enjoy the Faubourg Saint-Germain.”

“And you will?”

“Likely not, but I’m better at pretending enjoyment than you are.”

Enjolras had to concede that point, but declined Combeferre’s offer. He had undertaken to do something for Feuilly and now he wished to fulfill that.

The visit to Courfeyrac’s mistress’s house the next day, smoothed over by Courfeyrac’s note, was mercifully uneventful, except that the mistress had initially misunderstood her butler and thought Enjolras was Courfeyrac—with the result that she had entered her parlor saying, “Alexandre, _mon petit chaton_ , I was worried for you—”

Enjolras wondered what Bossuet, with his talent for taunts, would say if he learned that Courfeyrac was called “my little kitten” by his mistress.

Enjolras got the book, but Courfeyrac’s hat was not so lucky. Courfeyrac’s mistress, who was the daughter of a vicomte, had a sharp-eyed husband who had seen and asked about the hat. The vicomte’s daughter had calmly told her husband it was one of his own hats, whereupon the husband decided he did not like it and ordered the servants to give it to charity.

Enjolras could not feel too sorry; he supposed Courfeyrac was willing to risk his hats in pursuit of his pleasures. 

Feuilly came to the back room of the Musain that night to get his book. There was a visible tension in the set of his shoulders. Not timidity, but a sort of defensive caution, a palpable sense that he felt unsure of the people around him.

Enjolras was sorry for this. He supposed it could not be helped, that any worker might feel out of his element at a social gathering of students, but he wished he could do something to make Feuilly more comfortable.

“The book looks fascinating,” Enjolras said with a smile, handing it to Feuilly. “A very impressive man, Kościuszko, though I suspect I am mangling his name—it is not easy for a Frenchman to pronounce.”

“It took me several tries to get it right,” Feuilly said, with a brief smile of his own.

“I do hope you’re not leaving just yet,” Enjolras said. “If you can spare the time, why not stay and have a drink, and tell me why Polish history interests you so?”

The invitation to talk about Poland was, evidently, all it took to overcome Feuilly’s reluctance. Feuilly was inspired; Enjolras was captivated.

Once, when Enjolras was a small child, he had been playing with some other children at some sort of fair near his father’s family home in Aiguilhe. The sun had been setting. Enjolras ordinarily did not notice sunsets, but he was struck by the red and gold and purple fire of this one as it illuminated the high-up chapel, where Jeanne d’Arc’s mother had once come to pray. Enjolras had always thrilled to the story of Jeanne d’Arc, though he didn’t much care for churches. Something about the marvelous colors over the chapel took his breath away. He tugged at the sleeve of the little girl standing next to him and pointed for her to look up and see. Enjolras could not remember the other child’s name, but he did remember how her eyes grew wide.

That was how he felt when he explained his belief in the Republic to others: like he was pointing at something radiant, sharing its splendor with another. 

But as Feuilly spoke, for the first time Enjolras felt as though _he_ were the one having his sleeve tugged and his gaze drawn to the distant, blazing horizon. Combeferre often showed him the importance of the minute and the ordinary, the beauty of a moth found close to the ground, and that had its own thrill. Feuilly was different, though: Feuilly was urging him to look farther off, to think on a grander scale.

“If you don’t mind my asking,” Enjolras said, when Feuilly reached the end of an explanation of one of the many iniquities of the Congress of Vienna, “how did you develop your passion for other nations? It is so easy, after all, for a Frenchman to think only of France.”

Feuilly looked very grave. Enjolras feared he had made a misstep, but then Feuilly spoke: “Everyone needs a homeland,” he said. “Families often don’t suffice to support and educate each citizen. There are too many orphans, too many widows. I never knew my own parents. I had to teach myself how to live, how to work, how to read and write.”

Enjolras could not help his look of surprise. He knew from Combeferre how difficult it was to teach oneself to read.

Feuilly saw his expression. “Yes,” he said, “it is not easy. Nobody should need to do that. All countries should educate all their children. But no country can progress if foreigners chop it up into pieces.”

“We do speak of our fatherland, or our motherland,” Enjolras said musingly. “I suppose for orphans, that is their only parent, or else they turn to another guiding light. My mother was an orphan. She used to say the Church was her mother, but I cannot feel that way about religion. The Church is not a republic. It is inherently monarchical, and so I cannot love it.”

“Your mother has passed away, then?” Feuilly asked hesitantly.

“She and my father both, though I did know them as a child.”

"That at least is a comfort," Feuilly said. "When did they die, if I may ask?"

"Three years ago.” It had been Enjolras’s first month in Paris.

"Sickness?"

"A carriage accident.” It had been quick, so the letter from the doctor who had examined their bodies had said. Enjolras supposed it was better than a lingering illness. They had always been rather puzzled by their son, but they had been good to him nonetheless.

"But it appears,” Feuilly said, very gently, “that you have adopted the Republic as your mother and father both.”

Enjolras mulled this. He had not considered the matter in that light before. His passion for the Republic predated his parents’ deaths, though it had burned even brighter after coming to Paris. 

His contemplation was interrupted by the sounds of Joly and Bossuet, who were playing keep-away with Courfeyrac's new hat. Courfeyrac, supported by his cane, could only hobble between them, grousing in mock-outrage. "You exploit my infirmity? Oh, come now, Jolllly!"

Joly, who by now had acquired a prodigious supply of 'ls', cackled in response. He flung the hat over Courfeyrac's head at Bossuet, but overshot his mark. The hat collided with Enjolras's nose.

"You seem to have found brothers as well," Feuilly said dryly. "I am told they are a blessing."

"So am I," Enjolras said, his mouth quirking, "though I must say the evidence on that point is often contradictory. Excuse me for a moment." He took the hat in his uninjured left hand and went over to Courfeyrac, placing the hat snugly on his head, to the grumbles of Joly and Bossuet.

Combeferre returned with Enjolras to Feuilly’s table, as he wanted to tell Enjolras about some exciting discoveries he had made while dissecting a pig, and was utterly shocked by Feuilly’s eagerness to listen. Enjolras hid a smile. Combeferre was used to groans and feigned vomiting whenever he held forth on medical details. But Feuilly’s thirst for learning had no bounds, it seemed.

Eventually, though, Feuilly began to look very pensive. Enjolras finally asked him if something was wrong, and he said, “I fear I must ask you for a favor.”

He plainly did not like saying those words.

“The police are making a list of the troublemakers at Liancourt’s funeral,” Feuilly said. “I think a man who works with me—I am a fan painter, we work at the same shop—is on the list. Someone shouted it out at the riot. None of our fellow workers have any connections with the police. But I know that some of the better-organized political groups do know people who could get hold of that kind of list, and remove a name or two from it. Do you know anyone who could do that?”

Enjolras, catching Bahorel’s eye across the room, gestured for him to come over, and explained the situation.

“Yes, I know someone who knows someone,” Bahorel said, reliably. “Consider it taken care of. I’ll meet with him tomorrow.”

“I want to be there,” Feuilly said, with a hint of stubbornness.

“Very well,” Bahorel said, “but I’ll need you to stay hidden, and I’ll show you where to hide—I don’t want him to know you’re there. Actually, Enjolras, you and Combeferre come too, and maybe Courfeyrac if he can manage it with his cane—this man is someone you should know of. He’s not trustworthy, but he’s useful.”

They set a time and place where Bahorel would bring his mysterious contact, and then Feuilly rose to leave.

“I’m glad you stayed to talk,” Enjolras said, smiling.

Feuilly’s answering smile had none of its previous shyness. “Most people tell me to shut up when I start going on about Poland,” he said.

After Feuilly had left, Courfeyrac made his way over to Enjolras. "You look positively smitten," Courfeyrac said, his teasing lilt stronger than ever. "I haven't seen you smile quite like that since—well, since the day you first met _me._ My dear Enjolras, I almost feel jealous."

Enjolras fought the rush of blood to his face, but lost. Courfeyrac let out a whoop of laughing triumph at the sight of the blush, and exuberantly kissed Enjolras's crimsoned cheek.

"Feuilly was explaining his thoughts on the partition of Poland,” Enjolras said levelly. “I found it fascinating.” 

"I was eavesdropping a little,” Courfeyrac said, still grinning, “and when he talked about the evils of foreign conquests, he sounded like you do when you're on some soaring flight of inspiration. I like him."

"You like everybody," Combeferre pointed out.

"Not _everybody_ ," Courfeyrac began.

Combeferre cut him off, saying mildly, "You needn't argue, since that was actually a compliment."

"...oh,” said Courfeyrac, smiling. “Do give me fair warning of those before you pay them, Combeferre. Otherwise the shock might send me into a faint and, though I have absolute faith in your medical skill, I would rather not require it."

As Enjolras and Combeferre left the Musain together, their conversation turned to Feuilly. Enjolras did not trouble to conceal his enthusiasm; he knew Combeferre would share it.

“No one could blame him for thinking only of his own daily bread,” Enjolras said. “It would be admirable if he concerned himself with the plight of his fellow workers, better still if his concern extended to all of France. But Feuilly’s ambitions go beyond all that. He makes such visions look petty. He wants nothing less than to deliver the world. And he is no mere dreamer. He works for the future however he can, even where the effects of his work are distant and its costs are high. How can I help admiring that?” 

Combeferre smiled. “Of course you can’t,” he said. “I do as well. His passion for educating himself, his curiosity for all knowledge—I have never seen the like in anyone. He was even curious about dissecting corpses, which everyone tells me is both dull and grotesque.”

“I do not tell you that,” Enjolras said. “The subject holds no interest for me by itself, it is true. But when you explain it, I see it through your eyes and feel your joy in learning it.” 

Combeferre’s smile grew wider. “One of your many oddities, my friend,” he said, putting a hand on Enjolras’s shoulder. 

They met with Bahorel’s contact the next evening—or rather, Bahorel met with the contact in an appropriately dark alley, while Enjolras, Combeferre, Courfeyrac and Feuilly hid farther back in the shadows, masked by a curve in the alley. The weather was windy and unpleasant. “What does this fellow have against a nice café?” Courfeyrac complained in a whisper.

“This fellow” was a theology student whose pastimes were shadier than ideal for a would-be man of God. He knew a police clerk who could, for a mercifully small price, make strategic clerical errors that would divert the police’s attention from Feuilly’s friend.

After Bahorel finished haggling with the theology student, whom Bahorel addressed as Chapuis, over the size of the necessary bribe, Chapuis said, “I know you’re with the bunch of students who are always at the Café Musain these days. Which one of them’s in charge?”

“Enjolras,” Bahorel said.

"Enjolras," Chapuis repeated with a sneer. "You mean that pretty thing, who looks like a girl? Christ, you must be joking." He shook his head. "I suppose you let him think he's chief, so long as you can fuck him, eh?"

Enjolras could not concentrate on listening to Bahorel’s response; the flood of shame and anger swept away all other thought. He kept his face as impassive as he could, though he knew he was probably reddening.

He had heard such crudities before. He had become largely inured to them, but he had never heard anything so blatant said in the presence of his friends. There was a special humiliation in that. It was mortifying to sense Combeferre looking at him with that detached, compassionate understanding, to see the shock and comprehension on Courfeyrac's face, to wonder what Feuilly was thinking, to know that they had heard how others might describe him, and to feel that perhaps they saw him differently because of it. His mind knew that this last thought was unjust to his friends, but he could not make himself feel it. For the first time since the minute they had met, Enjolras wished Combeferre were elsewhere.

Courfeyrac had moved beyond surprise to indignation. He let out an angry hiss. The sound was drowned out by the wind's howl, but Enjolras still put a restraining hand on Courfeyrac's shoulder, and Combeferre clapped another over his mouth.

Coming back to his surroundings, Enjolras realized that Chapuis’s arm was in Bahorel’s grip.

“I advise you never to speak like that again,” Bahorel said, his voice very hard. “Now, you will do what we agreed?”

“Yes, yes,” Chapuis said, unable to keep a quaver out of his voice. “No need to get so worked up about it. I will talk to the clerk.”

“And get him to remove the name I gave you from the list? You swear it?”

“Yes, I swear it,” Chapuis said.

Bahorel handed over the money, and Chapuis beat a retreat that was more hasty than dignified.

Enjolras, Combeferre, Courfeyrac and Feuilly stepped forward out of the shadows.

“I would have properly beaten him, but we do need him to talk to that clerk,” Bahorel said.

“Of course,” Enjolras said, keeping his voice level.

Courfeyrac was staring after the student as if he wanted to pursue him and challenge him to a duel.

“What a miserable wretch,” Combeferre said with a deliberate, dismissive lightness. “How did you pick up such a specimen, Bahorel?” Enjolras suddenly felt profoundly grateful for Combeferre, and profoundly ashamed of himself for fearing his friend’s reaction.

“We could always hunt him down and give him his well-earned thrashing _after_ he bribes that clerk for us,” Bahorel said cheerfully. 

“No,” Enjolras said firmly. “We may need him again in the future. You should remain on civil terms with him, Bahorel.” Feuilly was looking at him with an odd expression that Enjolras could not decipher. Perhaps he thought Enjolras was being cowardly. But Enjolras would not do otherwise: he valued their work more than petty revenge. 

“Civil terms?” Courfeyrac looked furious.

“Yes,” Enjolras said. “What matters is what he can do for us. What he says is unimportant.” 

"There we disagree," Courfeyrac said evenly. "I consider it of the utmost importance that people treat you with respect." Enjolras could not help a short laugh at that. Courfeyrac whipped around to face him. "What? It is true. I tease you, but it is always with love—you know that, I hope?" Courfeyrac slipped his arm around Enjolras, pulling him close. "You _will_ know it, if you don't already." Courfeyrac's frank affection allowed for none of the distance and hierarchy of pity, and Enjolras felt a rush of gratitude for him, as well. 

“I can pay you back, for what you gave to that fellow for the bribe,” Feuilly said, to Bahorel. “I will just need some time.”

“No,” Bahorel said. “From what Joly told me about the riot, he’s very much in your debt anyway, so please consider this a partial repayment of that.”

Feuilly began to argue, but Bahorel, for all his disdain for the legal profession, had a talent for verbal as well as physical disputation. The two kept at it as they all walked to the nearby Musain.

When they reached, they settled into their customary tables in the back room, Enjolras sitting between Courfeyrac and Combeferre as usual, and Feuilly still feebly arguing with Bahorel. Courfeyrac, unable to punish Chapuis, had evidently chosen to defy him by clinging to Enjolras. He leaned in to rest his head on Enjolras's shoulder, putting an arm around his waist. Enjolras could not say he minded this at all, and unthinkingly draped his arm over Courfeyrac's shoulders.

“I wish I’d punched him,” came Courfeyrac's voice, muffled by the fact that his face was turned into Enjolras's neck.

"Naturally I share your anger, Courfeyrac. But Enjolras does not need others to defend him," Combeferre said, amused. 

"He does not _need_ it, but he most certainly _deserves_ it."

Enjolras tightened his hold on Courfeyrac. "I am very grateful that you would wish to do so," he said, "but truly, it would do no good."

"I am not so sure of that," Bahorel said, coming over from the next table. "Or, rather, I am sure any of us defending your honor would do no good, but it would not be the worst idea if _you_ were to charge in and punch the next man who openly talked of you like that."

Enjolras raised his eyebrows. "I am sure there _are_ worse ideas, somewhere," he said. "I simply cannot think of any at the moment." He felt Courfeyrac's giggle against his neck.

Bahorel smacked Enjolras lightly on the back of the head. "None of your cheek," he said, grinning. "I am serious. This time you couldn’t do anything, because we need this man’s cooperation. But the next time someone insults your manhood in your hearing, you should consider punching him."

Enjolras frowned. He could defend himself when others physically attacked him. But he did not respond to words with blows. "Why should I do such a thing?"

"Because you look the way you do," Bahorel said bluntly. Courfeyrac raised his head to glare at Bahorel. "Don't look at me like you want to demand satisfaction, Courfeyrac. You know I mean no insult to Enjolras—and besides, you would lose." This last was said with a chuckle. "But Enjolras, you are rather, well, pretty. It would do you—and our group—no harm for others to know that you can be fiercer than any overgrown bully."

"You think we lose credibility if our chief looks like Enjolras," Combeferre said.

"Possibly," Bahorel replied with a shrug. “And it’s easy enough to fix. You might not even have to hit them, Enjolras. Simply making it clear that you _could_ hurt them would do the trick.”

“No,” Enjolras said. “If someone assaults me, I can make a greater…display of fighting him off than I normally would, if that would help. But I won't use violence against petty insults. If my appearance interferes with my role as chief, I am happy to let someone else take it.” He saw Feuilly, who was standing behind Bahorel, staring at him again, and wondered again what Feuilly was thinking.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Bahorel snorted. “There are many other ways of handling this, if you don’t like my suggestion. I will do my best to spread the word that you are no weakling, to shut down any such talk. I'll get Louret to whine even louder than he usually does about the time you kicked him in the head, that should help."

“Thank you,” Enjolras said, with relief.

Bahorel regarded him fondly. "You are proof that friends can be of entirely different natures," he said. "I cannot imagine why anyone would dislike the prospect of pummeling a coward who talks rashly of his betters. It sounds like great fun to me. Anyway, I must be off—my new mistress awaits."

Combeferre had to leave as well, for the more prosaic reason that he had class the next morning.

“I have work early tomorrow,” Feuilly said, “and so I must be going, too—but I wanted to say…” He broke off, but continued in response to Enjolras’s inquiring look. “Well, I think you’re right, that’s all. About Bahorel’s suggestion. Anyway, thank you very much for your help—it was very kind of you.”

“Not at all," Enjolras said, happy to know that Feuilly did not scorn him as a coward, "and I do hope you come back here to speak with us often.”

“I have Courfeyrac’s book,” Feuilly said, smiling. “I will have to come back to return it, if nothing else.”

After he left, Courfeyrac pressed even closer to Enjolras, like a cat curling up against a favorite cushion. The back room was unusually quiet; they were the only two left. "I would greatly enjoy watching you thrash someone who talked like that Chapuis, I must say," Courfeyrac said.

"Does it bother you so much?" Enjolras asked. "It is just talk, Courfeyrac, and meaningless talk at that."

Courfeyrac let out a sigh. Enjolras felt the puff of warm breath against his skin. "I know that, of course. But it’s still awful to hear such gross insults to anyone I love and revere, you know.”

Enjolras felt a near-painful spike of tenderness. He shifted so he could put both arms around Courfeyrac, and pressed his cheek against Courfeyrac’s fashionable curls. Courfeyrac, dandy that he was, had put something (Enjolras had no idea what) into his hair that made it smell rather nice.

He felt Courfeyrac turn his head to look at an open book Enjolras had put on the table earlier. "Is that for _class_?” he said, with a trace of horror.

"Yes," Enjolras said.

"Are you reading it now?"

"I had thought to."

Courfeyrac, sounding tentative, said, "Would you mind terribly if I just stayed like this as you read?"

Enjolras felt the smile take over his face. "Not at all," he said, squeezing Courfeyrac's shoulders.

Courfeyrac made a contented sound, and buried his face once more in Enjolras's neck, as Enjolras flipped through the pages with his uninjured hand and let the other rest in Courfeyrac's hair.

They sat quietly like that until Joly and Bossuet made a boisterous entrance with Grantaire. Courfeyrac unwound himself from Enjolras as the others joined them. “I thought that fellow Feuilly was planning something with Bahorel tonight,” Bossuet said. “Did that go off?” 

“Yes,” Courfeyrac answered. “Feuilly came here afterwards, though he’s left now. His departure moved Enjolras to tears, of course, but leave he did.”

Enjolras turned to Bossuet, resolved that Courfeyrac should learn he had no monopoly on teasing. "Courfeyrac's mistress calls him her little kitten," Enjolras said. "Do with that what you will."

Bossuet looked as ecstatic as Combeferre upon acquiring a fresh cadaver to slice and dice. Enjolras smugly patted a spluttering Courfeyrac on the shoulder, as Bossuet went to work.


	6. Grantaire

**_Grantaire, 1832_ **

“Shoot me!” Enjolras said. He would join the protest of the corpses, as his friends had done. It was his only possible fate now. He did not regret it, and there was no sense in putting it off. 

“It seems like I am about to shoot a flower,” said a guardsman, lowering his weapon. 

A flower, indeed. Suddenly, without willing it, Enjolras pictured his friends' hilarity at hearing him described so. He could hear Bahorel’s rich, rolling chuckle. He could guess what witticisms Bossuet would fling at him with glee. He could feel Courfeyrac’s bubbling laugh against his ear. He could see, in exquisite detail, Combeferre’s lips curving into a half-suppressed smile. 

The sergeant offered to bandage his eyes, and Enjolras refused; asked if it was really him who killed the artilleryman, and he owned it. Did they expect him to deny it? To plead for mercy? Or were they reluctant to kill him? That was…kind, if so. Enjolras felt privileged to see an example of human fraternity in his last moments, though he would not take advantage of it. 

Then: “Vive la République! I am one of them!” 

He could not mistake Grantaire’s voice. He had heard it too many times, raised in aggressively incoherent oratory, drowning out other voices in the back room of the Musain. The only surprise was hearing it here and now. 

Time slowed, or so it seemed to Enjolras. A bare minute ago everything had been happening all at once. Now it seemed that time trickled like honey, and the space between one moment and the next was vast and yawning. 

Grantaire would die. He was dead from the moment he spoke. 

“Vive la République!” Grantaire repeated. 

What possessed Grantaire to do this? He had surely not developed republican conviction while slumped in a drunken stupor. 

But he must have realized the fates of all those he held dear. He loved them as Enjolras did. Love—conviction trained on individuals— _that_ might stir fresh currents within Grantaire, set his apathy ablaze, bring him here, pushing past the guardsmen, to stand by Enjolras’s side. 

“Two at one shot,” Grantaire said. 

_Love, thine is the future,_ Enjolras had said, without fully grasping its truth. He knew France would break her shackles—if not today, then tomorrow, or the day after. But that _Grantaire_ would free himself from wretched, sunken indifference—that was more than Enjolras had believed. Not more than he had hoped for, but more than he had truly believed. 

Grantaire looked at Enjolras and, though he reeked of spirits, Enjolras knew he could see the truth of Grantaire, the light long-smothered by drink and fear and doubt. 

“Do you permit it?” 

Enjolras wanted to tell Grantaire he needed no permission to die for his convictions, that such was his birthright. He wanted to tell Grantaire how proud he was, how warmed he was. 

But there was no time, and there were no words. He clasped Grantaire’s hand, feeling like he had lived to see the sun rise over a new Republic, and smiled. 

_Thine is the future_ , thought Enjolras, still smiling, as the shots rang out.  


***

**_Grantaire, 1829_ **

"Courfeyrac will be here soon," Combeferre said, in the special reassuring voice he would use to tell a sick child that his medicine would not taste too foul. 

Enjolras had believed he was concealing his worry. Stupid of him—concealing anything from Combeferre was a fool's errand. 

"Courfeyrac is not careless, Enjolras. He will take every precaution.” 

"I know that," Enjolras said, giving up the pretense of unconcern. "But there is always a risk, no matter how much care he takes—and I worry for Bahorel, too. I want to hear that he is well." 

Bahorel was in prison. He and Feuilly had been concluding a meeting with some artisans on a quiet part of the quay by the Seine, when their look-out had whistled sharply. Everyone scattered immediately at a signal from Feuilly, who remained behind to help Bahorel stuff certain subversive materials away in his bag and coat pockets. 

They hadn't been quick enough. The footsteps of the police became audible, then loud, and Bahorel and Feuilly feared that any escape routes were now cut off. As Feuilly later told them, Bahorel had abruptly asked him, "Can you swim?" 

Feuilly, not thinking, responded, "Yes—"

"Splendid," said Bahorel, and pushed Feuilly into the Seine. 

The result was that Bahorel was alone to welcome the gendarmes and distract them from pursuing Feuilly or any of the others who had been at the meeting and, after a relatively speedy trial, received a sentence of six months in La Force for his disrespect to church and state. 

Feuilly, meanwhile, remained a free man, if temporarily a very wet one. "The miasmas of the Seine are very dangerous," Joly had clucked, but Feuilly remained obnoxiously healthy. 

Visits in prison were generally restricted to family. Bahorel's family was in the Provençal countryside. Naturally, this inspired a scheme to have one of Les Amis de l'ABC pose as Bahorel's brother. Nobody had the right identity papers for it, of course, but everyone was happy to pitch in for the bribes that would make such identity papers unnecessary. 

But Bahorel had massive shoulders, a rugged face, black hair, and a highly conspicuous air of cheerful menace. Not everyone could pretend to be his relation without raising eyebrows. Enjolras's blond hair and build ruled him out. Combeferre's face was an entirely different shape from Bahorel's. Feuilly was rather small-framed himself, and his ability to pass as the son of well-to-do peasants was questionable. Grantaire's looks were not too unsuited for this role, and he was generally willing to help a friend, but visiting a political prisoner without incurring suspicion was a delicate and meticulous business. Grantaire did not volunteer for it, nor did anyone ask it of him. Bahorel's mistress Pauline would have gone, but she was auburn-haired and freckled. Joly's twitchiness and Bossuet's luck made them less than ideal candidates, and as for Jean Prouvaire—the notion of their gentle, blushing friend being of the same blood as Bahorel had sent everyone into fits of laughter. 

That left Courfeyrac, who didn’t look strikingly like Bahorel either, but whom everyone agreed could play a part exceedingly well. Courfeyrac threw himself into the character of the junior Bahorel with gusto, putting on the accent of a Provençal peasant and even making the supreme sacrifice of letting the curls fall out of his hair before visiting, so that his hair would look more like Bahorel's. "Bahorel should be touched by this proof of friendship," Courfeyrac had said, wincing at his reflection. "I swore to go through fire. I didn’t swear to look shabby while doing so.” 

All was carefully planned. Enjolras could not help worrying, though. They were all better off if the authorities paid no attention to them, and visiting prisoners—not to mention _becoming_ prisoners—unavoidably garnered such attention. 

Enjolras drummed his fingers on the tabletop without thinking about it. He stopped when Combeferre gave him a look that managed to be pointed and indulgent at the same time. Turning to his book, Enjolras forced himself to read it rather than brood idly. An hour or so passed before he heard Courfeyrac's voice, and looked up in relief to see Courfeyrac's grin. 

"How is he?" Enjolras asked. 

"Tolerable," Courfeyrac said. "He's made friends with Pierre-Jean de Béranger—being jailed on similar charges forms a bond, I’m told. They annoy the guards by singing Béranger's songs. One of the guards punched Bahorel in the face over it, so he's got a bruise. But he's all right." 

"Béranger is so famous a songwriter that he must be getting good treatment," Combeferre said. "Surely Bahorel will benefit by knowing him. Béranger can use his influence to make sure the guards don't mistreat Bahorel." 

"Yes," Courfeyrac said, "the guard who hit Bahorel was punished after Béranger threatened to do a song and dance about it. Pun intended." 

Combeferre produced one of his patient smiles. “He wasn’t badly injured?”

“No, and I insisted on looking closely at the bruise to check. I really think he’s all right, though my glimpse into La Force was enough to inspire me to greater heights of caution, I must say.” 

All three fell into a sober silence. Bahorel was hardy, indomitable of spirit, and his body was stronger than an ox, but prison would have a wearying effect even on him. 

“Look on the bright side,” Courfeyrac said after a moment. “It could have been Jehan who was caught, and then think what a state we’d all be in.” 

Enjolras could not repress a shudder, but said, “Jean Prouvaire is perfectly capable of enduring hardship with courage.” 

“Certainly. It’s our endurance I doubt, not his. Somehow it would be even worse to think of a poetic soul in that place. Not that it’s not awful when it’s Bahorel, but it comforts me to remember that he is composed of the purest and frankest prose.” Courfeyrac rose to ask Louison, who had just entered, for a drink, and Combeferre began to tell Enjolras about the lecture at the Jardin des Plantes he had attended recently. 

Enjolras did not know how much time passed before he felt a hand press his shoulder. He looked up to see Courfeyrac, with a grave-faced Louison beside him. 

“Louison has a serious problem,” Courfeyrac said in a low voice. “I want to see if there’s a way we can help her.” 

Courfeyrac pulled out a chair for Louison before sitting down himself.

“What’s wrong, citoyenne?” Enjolras could see wet streaks on her face, though she was composed. 

“I don’t like to presume, or to trouble you,” she said. “I told Monsieur Courfeyrac because he asked, but—”

Courfeyrac squeezed her hand in reassurance. “You told me you would normally ask Bahorel for help in this sort of situation,” he said. “Since Bahorel is not here, it falls on us to help. Please, tell them what you told me.” 

“It’s my sister, messieurs,” Louison said finally, in a carefully even tone. “Claude is her name. She—she is being blackmailed.” 

“For what?” Combeferre said calmly, when Louison did not go on. 

“For everything,” Louison burst out, with venom. “He is a criminal. He wishes to use her in his crimes—to make her help him steal—” She broke off. 

“Who is this person?” Enjolras asked. 

“He told her his name is Babet,” Louison said. “A very thin fellow, she said, not even very handsome, but he charmed her. He was taking her out for walks and such for some time—making up to her, flirting with her, making her think he was courting her.” She looked down, then, and stared fixedly at the table. 

“Go on,” Courfeyrac said. “The only shame here belongs to Babet, Louison. No one here will think the less of you or your sister. I swear it on my honor.” 

“She is a sweet girl, but overly trusting, and perhaps not as firm as she should be, messieurs,” Louison said, sounding wretched. “She works as a kitchen-maid—and this Babet persuaded her to steal a silver bowl for him from her employers. He told her a cock and bull story of how he desperately needed money, and how it wasn’t truly a sin if she did it selflessly for another—and she fell for it, I am sorry to say. She’s not a bad girl, messieurs, she’s just young, only eighteen—” She fell silent again. 

“I do not know your sister, citoyenne, but I do not think she is bad in any way,” Enjolras said, sincerely. “It sounds to me like she has merely been used and betrayed by an unscrupulous person. So she gave him the silver?” 

“Yes,” Louison admitted. “She gave it to him, and now he threatens to go to her employers and tell them everything, and show them the bowl as proof—unless she obeys him.” 

Combeferre frowned. “But how would he tell her employers without implicating himself—and getting thrown in jail?”

“I told her to ask him that, and she said he told her he has his ways and wouldn’t get caught,” Louison said. “She believed him. He is frightening, messieurs.” 

“Her employers would not believe her, if she simply denied all guilt when he showed them the bowl?” Combeferre asked gently. 

Louison shook her head. “The other servants saw Claude going out with Babet. They would likely tell the butler and the family if questioned. So if Babet has the bowl, the butler would of course believe she gave it to him. No matter how much she denied it. The same problem would arise if Claude went to the police.” 

“How would you like us to help, citoyenne?” Enjolras knew how much they owed Louison—she had overheard enough of their conversations to denounce them all to the police several times over by this point. Bahorel had suggested the Café Musain as their regular meeting place years ago largely because he already knew and trusted her. “Her grandmother was one of the fishwives who marched on Versailles,” Bahorel had said, grinning. “She’s the one who raised Louison. We needn’t fear she’ll tell tales.” If Louison were of a lesser mettle, they would all be Bahorel’s neighbors in La Force. Helping her if she asked them would be merely repaying a debt. 

“Well,” she said, with a quick, nervous laugh, “as I told Monsieur Courfeyrac, this is normally the sort of thing I would ask Guillaume about,” she said, referring to Bahorel, “since I know he’s helped many people get out of sticky situations. He would handle this by having a chat with Babet, but…" 

Enjolras hid a smile. A "chat" with Bahorel would undoubtedly be enough to frighten most people onto the path of virtue. “I do not know if a…chat…would do much good here,” he said thoughtfully. “The crux of the matter, it seems to me, is the bowl. Has its theft been noticed yet?” 

“No,” Louison said. “It is not used every day.” 

“Then if Babet no longer has the bowl in his possession—if your sister can put it back—he loses both his accusation and his proof of it,” Enjolras said. 

“You want to steal the bowl from him,” Courfeyrac said. His face was still full of earnest concern, but his eyes began to glimmer with his usual sense of fun. Enjolras could tell that Courfeyrac was tickled by the idea of committing burglary. 

In fact, he suspected Courfeyrac of already thinking out an excessively elaborate plot, ripped straight from a trashy novel, involving code words and disguises and unlikely hiding places and probably a melodramatic but ultimately harmless fist fight or two.

“Yes,” Enjolras said, and Courfeyrac grinned. 

Combeferre, being more sensible, frowned. “Do you know where Babet lives, citoyenne?” 

“My sister does,” Louison said. “I can find out for you where he lives, and let you know tomorrow.”

A thought occurred to Enjolras. “But will Babet retaliate against your sister once he realizes the bowl is gone?”

Louison looked pensive for a moment, then shook her head. “I do not see how he can,” she said. “He knows where she works, but not where she lives. If she takes care in going and coming from work, she should be safe. And once she puts the bowl back, she will be able to tell the housekeeper at her work that Babet is a bad sort, and not to let him near the house.”

“Good,” Enjolras said. “Then, if you have no objection, we will follow this plan.” 

“No objection at all, but now I will have to go back to work.” She rose. “I cannot thank you enough—”

“There is no need,” Enjolras said. 

Courfeyrac stood, taking Louison’s hand. “Please try not to worry too much, Louison. We’re not as frightening as Bahorel, I know, but we can sometimes be useful in our own fashion. I promise.” 

Louison came to them the next day with an address. “I went there early this morning, before I started work,” she said, raising her chin pugnaciously. “I waited and spied a little and asked a few questions. I found out that Babet stays in a tiny room on the sixth floor, and shares it with one other man. There's no concierge or anything like that. Their rooms must have a lock, though—but I wouldn't be surprised if Guillaume taught you how to deal with those." 

“Well done,” Courfeyrac said, grinning. “Do they work during the day?” 

“Work? Him? Not likely,” Louison said scornfully. “I saw him coming back at dawn—meaning that he is likely out all night. I do not know about the man he rooms with, but he’s likely a rascal, too, isn’t he? Out at night to steal and kill, then back during the day to rest up for the next crime.” She suddenly looked anxious. “I feel guilty, asking you to help with this—it’s dangerous—”

“Pfft!” said Courfeyrac. “Danger! My dear Louison, pray don’t insult us by implying that we’re cowards,” he said, giving her a deliberately charming smile. 

Louison, in spite of herself, smiled in return. “What do you plan to do, then?”

“…I plan to ask Enjolras and Combeferre what the plan is,” said Courfeyrac. “That is usually a good course of action, you must admit. But I would say that a night-time visit to this Babet's room when he's not at home seems indicated, my friends.” 

"Yes," Enjolras said. "I will retrieve the bowl tomorrow night." 

"Not alone," Combeferre said firmly. 

"No, not alone," Courfeyrac agreed, giving Enjolras a sharp look. "I will go with you."

"And do what, challenge Babet to a fencing match?" Combeferre said, covering Courfeyrac's hand with his own to take the edge off the remark. "Babet is probably a very rough sort, and we want this to go as bloodlessly as possible. If he catches people stealing from him, it would be best if they could escape without using a pistol or any other lethal weapon. Enjolras's good at hand-to-hand fighting, but the person who accompanies him should be equally good at it, ideally." 

"Meaning you and I are not ideal, but who is?" Courfeyrac shook his head. "Bahorel would be perfect, but obviously he has a prior engagement. Jehan is as good as I am at that sort of thing, but no better. Bossuet and Joly are probably worse. And I'd hate to ask Feuilly to spend a night stealing silver from a thief when he, unlike us, actually works all day. Really," he said, turning to Enjolras, "I'll just go with you. You can't go alone." 

"I was considering a different option," Combeferre said, looking over to the corner where Grantaire was drinking with Bossuet and Joly. 

Enjolras, Courfeyrac and Louison followed his gaze. 

"Ah," said Courfeyrac, "so you suggest we invite Babet to a drinking contest?" 

"You know Grantaire is very skilled at boxing and singlesticks," Enjolras said resignedly. 

Combeferre did not miss the reluctant note in Enjolras's voice. "His talents would be helpful here," he said gently. 

"Yes," Enjolras conceded, "and it would be a happy thing if we could persuade him to use them." 

"He has helped us before. He may be willing to do so again. I will ask him, if you like," Combeferre offered. 

"No, I will," Enjolras said, rising to his feet.

“I will come with you,” Louison said. 

Grantaire's eyes were bleary when Enjolras and Louison approached, but fixed sharply on Enjolras as soon as he spoke. "Grantaire, could we have a word?" Enjolras asked, motioning to Grantaire to come a little away from his table. 

Grantaire followed, raising his eyebrows. He had been drinking even more than usual tonight. In fact, he seemed drunker than Enjolras had ever seen him before. 

Enjolras could smell the alcohol coming off him in waves. Somehow he became oversensitive to such minor annoyances in Grantaire’s presence. All his senses grew painfully acute around Grantaire, it seemed. The stench of liquor, the harshness of Grantaire’s voice, the blotchiness of his skin from years of drinking, the uncaring slump of his shoulders, the occasional glimmer of life in his eyes—despite his best efforts at calm, Enjolras always found himself bristling and prickling and sometimes briefly soaring with hope, only to sink in disappointment, in constant reaction to all of these things. 

Tonight Grantaire appeared too drunk to hear reason. Enjolras feared no good would come of this conversation. But he had to try. 

"But of course,” said Grantaire. “I have an endless supply of words. They flow from me without cease, as the wine flows into me. They mean nothing, but what does that matter if they sound well? Words are the servants of Hermes, they are meant to carry messages but they play tricks instead, never saying what they should—"

"Louison needs help," Enjolras cut in, fearing Grantaire would go on like this without pause. "I came to ask you if you could assist me in doing something for her—"

"Ah! For Louison! Not for yourself, of course, you would not stoop so low as to ask me to help you for yourself, no, and you would not need it, for what help would a chiseled sculpture ever require, other than perhaps a dusting now and then? But for another, for one of the abaissé—" 

"Grantaire, listen," Enjolras said, a commanding note creeping into his voice. 

Grantaire's lips curved into an ironic smile. "I am your obedient servant, as always." He took Enjolras's hand and bowed over it, kissing Enjolras's fingers. 

Enjolras pulled his hand away. "Be serious, Grantaire. Louison's sister's liberty and honor are at stake here. Let me explain—" 

"Liberty!" Grantaire said. "Ah, yes, but what man is ever truly free? And what woman either? No one is, and you surely do not expect me to free her. Our Hebe may weep for her sister, but I can do nothing to stop her tears, no. And honor! Do not talk to me of a woman’s honor, or of a man’s, for a woman’s honor is brittle as glass, and a man’s honor lies in breaking it, as Paris did with Helen, as Zeus did with Europa and Ganymede, as Apollo tried with Cassandra, and when she resisted, what was her reward? Such is the fruit of honor. Never worry about honor, Louison, here—take these sous, in fact, take these francs—whatever it is, money will help it, and a kiss would help _me_ , tremendously, if you would consent to give me one—"

"Grantaire, stop it," Enjolras said wearily, as Grantaire began to sidle close to Louison, who stepped away from him. 

"Oh, don't worry, Enjolras, Hebe cannot compare with Hyacinthus, except in the realm of kisses, where women excel—" Grantaire grabbed at Louison's wrist, and Enjolras moved between them, which put him closer to Grantaire than he liked. The brandy fumes were almost intolerable. 

He turned to look at Louison, who looked like she strongly desired to leave. "Go if you wish," Enjolras said. "I will reason with him." Louison left the back room as speedily as dignity would allow. 

Enjolras turned back to Grantaire. “We are speaking of a person who is caught in a snare, not of the pantheon of ancient Greece,” he said, irritated. “Put your nonsense aside and think of something higher for once in your life!”

Grantaire suddenly put on a serious expression. “Ah, yes, but I should not have spoken so to _you_ , Enjolras. For of course you have honor, unlike any Greek whore or catamite—”

Enjolras felt his lip curl in disgust. 

“—but your honor is a small shining speck in a world covered in grime, you see, and the rest of us cannot attain to it, for scrub though we will, we are never clean, as the vessels in this café are never wholly clean despite Louison's scouring, and her sister's honor will be much the same—" Here Grantaire paused to take a swig out of his bottle, looking at Enjolras in what seemed like amusement. 

"And yet, you would be displeased if she did not make the dishes and glasses as clean as she could," Enjolras said. "Are you so unwilling to make a similar attempt for her sake? At least hear what I'm asking—" 

"I am no dishwasher," Grantaire said. "I clean many glasses a day, but not by scrubbing them." He then proceeded to clean the bottle he was holding by pouring its last drops down his throat, before giving Enjolras an exaggerated bow and rejoining Joly and Bossuet. Sitting down at their table again, he began to talk loudly of the grisette he meant to bring to his bed as soon as she relented. Really, it was astonishing that their group ever got anything done, with Grantaire constantly blathering at high volume no matter what others were trying to discuss. Bahorel had advocated a rule barring anyone from bringing their mistresses into the back room, citing the potential for both distraction and danger. Enjolras had agreed about the danger—the conversations in the back room were confidential, and there was often no way of ascertaining the mistresses' trustworthiness, especially given their usual transience—but he didn't see how whole armies of mistresses could be nearly as distracting as Grantaire's usual behavior. 

Enjolras returned to the table where Courfeyrac and Combeferre were still sitting. 

"I suppose that didn't go well?" Courfeyrac said wryly. He put a comforting hand on Enjolras's shoulder as Enjolras sat down. 

"Grantaire refused?" Combeferre asked, looking somewhat disappointed. 

"He did not so much as let us complete our request," Enjolras said, startled by the anger in his own voice. "I could understand his refusing what we ask, since it is dangerous and illegal. But he did not even care to hear what the problem was, or what exactly was being asked of him. It simply held no interest for him." 

"Perhaps you could try again when he hasn't been drinking," Courfeyrac said. 

Enjolras snorted. "And when exactly would that be?" 

Courfeyrac winced. "Point taken, but he is sober sometimes, and there are certainly occasions when he is less drunk than he is now." 

"That is true, but we need to act quickly on this matter. We cannot wait until we run into Grantaire when he is more sober," said Combeferre. 

"Yes, this should be done tomorrow," Enjolras said. "Courfeyrac, would you—"

"Of course," Courfeyrac said.

"I will come too," Combeferre said. "It occurs to me that three men are ideal for this task: two to enter the apartment, while the third is look-out on the street, to watch for Babet." 

"Ye-es," Courfeyrac said, sounding doubtful, "but...Combeferre, you're not the best look-out material, are you? I mean this in the most complimentary sense—you look like a scholar thinking philosophical thoughts about the nature of human existence, not someone who would be loafing around a disreputable street at night. Let's bring Bossuet along instead. That coat he's currently wearing would be admirably suited to a vagabond. And if the coat gets damaged in a scuffle, I'll have a perfect excuse to lend him a better one." 

But the next evening at dusk, when Enjolras and Bossuet were waiting for Courfeyrac to meet them in the Musain's back room, a gamin came running in. Enjolras recognized him because Combeferre occasionally taught him to read and do sums. The story of being a society for children's education was not wholly a ruse, especially not for Combeferre. 

"Pierre, isn't it?" Bossuet said. "What are you doing here?" 

"Monsieur Combeferre sent me," said Pierre. "Monsieur Courfeyrac got hurt and can't meet you tonight like he said he would." The boy looked like he had been crying. 

"What happened?" Enjolras asked. 

"Monsieur Courfeyrac stopped a big fellow who hit me for bumping into him on the street." Pierre's lip was split and had a trace of blood still on it, Enjolras saw. "The big fellow gave Monsieur Courfeyrac a black eye and Monsieur Combeferre is fixing him and says he'll be all right, but he says Monsieur Courfeyrac has to rest now." 

"Are you all right?" Bossuet asked. "Here, sit down, boy, have something to eat. You look terrified." Bossuet nodded to Louison, who ushered the boy out of the back room and into the front of the Musain to have his meal. 

"Well, I suppose we make do with two, then," Bossuet said to Enjolras. 

"Yes, and we should be off," Enjolras said, rising. "The sooner the better." 

"I will come with you." Louison had reappeared at the door. "You need a look-out, messieurs, and neither of you should walk into that apartment alone. That means three people, and none of your other friends are here." 

Bossuet frowned. "Don't you need to work?" 

"Tonight's my early night, luckily enough," Louison said briskly. 

"It is a dangerous part of the city, citoyenne," Enjolras demurred. 

"Yes, I know, I live in that part of the city myself," Louison said, with a snort. "And this is all for my sister anyway. I am coming with you."

Enjolras began to object that this was no task for a woman, remembered the grandmother marching on Versailles, considered their likelihood of a clean escape if Babet and his friend returned at night and surprised them unawares in the apartment, and closed his mouth over his protest. "Very well," he said reluctantly. 

After an omnibus ride and a fairly long walk, they arrived at Babet's building. Louison stayed just outside the building as look-out, promising to burst into song underneath the window of Babet's apartment if she saw him coming. 

"But what if he recognizes you?" Bossuet asked, exchanging a glance with Enjolras. 

"We've never met," Louison said. "I know what he looks like from Claude's descriptions, but I don't think he knows what I look like. If he gets a good look at my face under a street light, he might spot the family resemblance to Claude, but I won't let that happen." 

With that, Enjolras and Bossuet had to be content. 

They mounted the stairs to Babet's apartment, listened at the door cautiously and, after hearing no noise inside, proceeded to put Bahorel's instructions in lock-picking to good use. "Where did Bahorel even learn this?" Bossuet said under his breath, as Enjolras fiddled with the lock. 

"A particularly resourceful gamin friend," Enjolras said, hearing the 'click' that indicated success. He swiftly opened the door and charged in immediately, to avoid giving anyone who might be inside an extra moment to prepare an attack.

Luckily no one was inside. The apartment was dusty and cluttered, with expensive-looking vases and candelabras and teapots stacked against the walls. 

"Not a novice thief, then, this Babet," Bossuet murmured. "A master of his craft." 

"Louison said the bowl had handles carved like dryads, correct? I hope there isn’t more than one bowl matching the description,” Enjolras said. "We would have to take them all, if so." 

"I don't suppose it would do Mademoiselle Claude much good to get back the wrong bowl," Bossuet agreed. 

Enjolras and Bossuet began a careful search of Babet’s possessions, or rather, the possessions of everyone Babet had robbed in his accomplished career of crime. “Let us try not to make it plain that someone has been searching here,” Enjolras said. 

Suddenly, they heard several male voices caterwauling from the street below. Bossuet went to the window to look. “Just a bunch of drunks having a bit too much fun,” he said, returning to the search. 

The drunks kept up their cacophony with remarkable stamina. Bossuet and Enjolras tried their best to ignore it, but the sound grew so loud as to be painful at times. 

Finally, after what seemed like an interminable period, Bossuet held up the silver bowl by its dryad handles, grinning broadly. “It seems Lady Luck decided to try out a different expression and smile on me, for a change,” he said, raising his voice over the sound of the drunks. 

It was at that precise moment that two men burst in, one of whom was presumably Babet, and the other of whom may in fact have been a smallish mountain that had somehow learned how to walk. 

“Remind me never to say that again,” Bossuet said, turning pale. “Er, hello, gentlemen. Um. Sorry for the intrusion. We, er, got lost?” 

The miniature mountain growled out something unintelligible but probably obscene, strode over to Bossuet, and took a wild swing at him. Bossuet raised his arm to block it, but the blow still glanced off his head and sent him staggering backwards. 

Enjolras was moving to intercept the gigantic man’s next blow when he heard a solid “thwack.” He and the big man both looked in its direction, but the big man turned directly into the path of a heavy silver vase, wielded by Louison, who was standing on a chair so she could reach the big man’s head. 

The big man reeled. Louison raised the vase once more and struck him frantically, again and again. He sagged to the floor in a graceless heap. 

Babet was already lying supine at the foot of Louison’s chair, presumably due to that first “thwack.” 

“You found the bowl, monsieur!” Louison said jubilantly, perceiving it dangling from a shaken Bossuet’s hand. “How wonderful! I sang to warn you they were coming up, but I was scared those drunks out there were drowning me out with their howling. So I thought I would just follow quietly behind them, and see if I could yell or do something else before they came in, but then I saw this vase, and, well...” 

“That was very brave of you, citoyenne,” Enjolras said, truly impressed. “We are entirely in your debt.” 

“Especially me,” said Bossuet. “I think that man there could have just stepped on me like an ant.” 

“Nonsense,” Louison said, matter-of-factly, “this whole business is for my sister in the first place. Now come, let us get out before our friends here wake up.” 

Enjolras and Bossuet obeyed, following her out of the apartment. Bossuet stopped to grab the vase Louison had used as a weapon. “If we take this as well, perhaps Babet won’t suspect your sister in particular, as he would if only her bowl was gone,” Bossuet explained, handing the vase to Louison, as they went down the stairs. 

“How is your head, Bossuet?” Enjolras asked. 

“Bruised, but nothing serious, I think,” Bossuet said, rubbing the spot where the man’s fist had struck. 

“Perhaps you should…fly back to your nest and rest a little?” Enjolras suggested, with a touch of dry humor. 

“I need my wings for that,” Bossuet said, “but Jolllly is probably at home, with Musichetta, so my wings are already in my nest, and…hmm, this metaphor is failing completely.” 

“If you keep to the metaphor, it means you’re stuck with no wings and unable to move anywhere,” Enjolras agreed, “so perhaps it is better to abandon it. But you should get home quickly. Why don’t you go find a fiacre? And if you will allow it, citoyenne,” he said, turning to Louison, “I can see you safely to your own building—you said it was close by, but it may be dangerous for you to go alone carrying the silver.” 

Agreeing to this plan, Bossuet bid Enjolras and Louison a good night, and walked off in the opposite direction from them. 

“I am so thankful that succeeded,” Louison said as they walked. “I must confess to you that I was worried—not that I thought you could not do it, but, well, it’s not the sort of thing you normally do, it’s more Guillaume’s sort of thing, and especially when Monsieur Grantaire would not come—” 

“Grantaire was…not in a tractable mood,” Enjolras said. 

“He rarely is,” Louison said, “though I suppose if he were going to listen to someone, it would be you.” 

"He has no interest in listening to me any more than he listens to anyone else,” Enjolras scoffed. “He just stares at me and makes remarks as if I were a—a—" He broke off, not knowing how to finish the thought, and not really wanting to. 

Louison completed it for him. "A woman," she said dryly. 

Enjolras flushed. “Perhaps,” he said. "I do not know how women bear it, if that is commonplace for them." 

Louison gave a short, bitter laugh. "We mostly have no choice," she said. "But you are not a woman, and you do have a choice. You could banish Monsieur Grantaire from your meetings and not one of your friends would stand against you. Why don't you do that? Men don't suffer other men to treat them the way men treat women, in my experience." 

Enjolras wondered if Louison meant to insult him by saying that, but he thought not. Her voice was kind, not contemptuous. "That would be unjust," Enjolras said. "I will not demand his absence when he has done nothing more than look—and sometimes talk. And even his talk is...indirect. I will not punish someone for what I suspect him of thinking." He frowned. "Does he mistreat you, citoyenne? We’ve all seen him try to… _importune_ you when you wish to get away, and we stop him when we see him, but please tell us if he does worse out of our sight—"

"No, no worse," Louison said. "He can be…unpleasant, but no worse than many drunken patrons, to tell you the truth. He is capable of being kind under it all, so there are some limits.” 

"Yes," Enjolras said. "He is capable of being kind, he has a fine intellect—and he squanders it all."

"I have seen many like him. There are those who have nothing, who fight for everything, like Monsieur Feuilly. And then there are those who seem to have a great deal, but they do not truly have it, because they do not know they have it, and they throw it away. It is very sad." 

"It is infuriating," Enjolras said, with heat. 

Louison smiled. "You feel angry because you expect better from him. I have seen too many like him to expect anything, and so it just makes me sad." 

They arrived at Louison’s building. “Good night, citoyenne,” Enjolras said. “I hope your sister has no trouble returning the bowl.” Louison bid him a good night, and Enjolras went home. 

"So what you are telling me is that you two got yourselves in over your heads, and had to be rescued by Louison," Courfeyrac said, the next evening at the Musain, sporting a gleaming purple bruise over his eye.

"I would not say _rescued_ ," Bossuet objected. "Assisted.”

“Supported, it sounds like,” put in Joly, loyally. “Helped—"

"Rescued," Enjolras admitted, facing facts. "It would be unjust to deny her the credit for her valor simply because Courfeyrac is enjoying it too much."

Courfeyrac grinned. "Oh, don't worry, I won't tease you for it. But Louison deserves praise, don't you think? Perhaps Jehan could compose a ballad in her honor, all about how she charged in to save you, like Jeanne d'Arc saving the French commanders at the Siege of Orléans. Enjolras, you're obviously the Bastard of Orléans in this parallel. Bossuet, you can be Jean de Brosse, he was a good sort of fellow. Unless you'd rather be La Hire, or Gilles de Rais, though in that last case we'd have to keep the gamins safely away from you—"

"I envy the man who gave you that black eye," said Bossuet. 

"Babet even rhymes with Bossuet," continued Courfeyrac, undeterred. "How fortuitous! Though nothing rhymes with Enjolras, really. Maybe we could shorten it to 'Enj,' or perhaps turn it into a metaphor and make you an angel, _ange_. In either case, we could rhyme it with _orange_ , though nothing orange was involved, or _mélange_ , though I don't see how that would make sense, really—“

“ _Étrange_ ,” said Joly.

“That would make _perfect_ sense, since everything about the story is strange, including the characters—and that is quite a glare you have been fixing upon me, Enjolras. I confess to feeling a tremor of fear, but only a tremor. You should save it for the more aggressive grisettes. It will have more effect on them, as the element of surprise will be there. Anyway, this ballad. I'll leave the details to Jehan, but we could adopt it as our group anthem, and begin each meeting with a rousing rendition of it. Just to keep the memory of the glorious event alive, you know. What do you say?"

"Courfeyrac," said Enjolras, "do shut up."

Just then, Louison came by with a drink for Courfeyrac. "Did your sister put the bowl back with no trouble?" Bossuet said, blatantly changing the subject.

"Oh yes," Louison said brightly. "And Babet hasn't come near her work so far—I do hope he won't realize what happened and get angry."

"We did take that vase," Enjolras said. "Hopefully they think we were simply robbers."

"You did not look like robbers," Louison said, with twitching lips, "but in any case, the other servants have been warned that Babet's a bad lot, and Claude will be careful traveling to and from work." 

She left the back room just as Grantaire came in, his voice ringing out in a loud greeting. He came to their table, sliding between Joly and Bossuet, and looking much soberer than he had two nights before. 

“That bruise looks even nastier today, Courfeyrac,” said Grantaire, tilting Courfeyrac’s chin upwards with gentle fingers. “I hope it doesn’t hurt too badly. Have you been putting ice on it, as Combeferre told you?”

“Yes, mother,” Courfeyrac replied, with a cheeky smile. 

As Grantaire fell into a conversation with Joly and Bossuet, Courfeyrac pulled his chair closer to Enjolras. "I think Grantaire feels badly about how he acted the other night," Courfeyrac said, leaning over to murmur in Enjolras’s ear. "Last night when I got this lovely bruise, Grantaire helped me get away from the brute who gave it to me, and fussed over me like a mother hen, and took me to Combeferre's apartment. Then he gave me some money to give Bahorel the next time I visit him, which will be helpful. Living comfortably in prison is expensive. But I think Grantaire was trying to clear his conscience about something. He’s often solicitous when people are in trouble, but he was especially so yesterday." 

“I am glad he helped you, at least,” Enjolras said, brushing a lock of hair out of Courfeyrac’s face to check on the bruise. 

Then he looked over to where Grantaire was sitting, and caught his eye. Grantaire looked away, then at him again. “Louison is all right?” Grantaire asked, sounding somewhat ashamed.

“Yes,” Enjolras said, vaguely pleased, “all went smoothly. Mostly.”

Grantaire smiled. For one moment, he was transfigured. But then he said, “Ah, well, Courfeyrac told me the story, and her sister will just find some other cad to drag her into disrepute anyway. Or if she doesn’t, she will wish she had. Virtue is a dull pursuit—”

Courfeyrac slung his arm around Enjolras’s shoulders. “That is our Capital R for you,” he said, in a low voice. “Do not take it to heart.”

Combeferre came in just then, which made it easier for Enjolras to divert his mind. He wrangled about Robespierre with Combeferre and Courfeyrac, and listened to Combeferre talk about the operation he assisted with that day, and watched in amusement as Courfeyrac made all sorts of faces at the medical details when Combeferre was not looking, only to present an innocent smoothness of countenance when Combeferre turned his way. After an hour or two of this, Enjolras’s spirits settled.

As he and Combeferre left the Musain, Combeferre repeated what Courfeyrac had told him, about Grantaire’s assistance the night before. “I think he felt sorry for refusing Louison—and particularly for refusing you,” Combeferre said. 

Enjolras felt a flicker of renewed irritation at Grantaire. “Refusing me,” he said. “But why should Grantaire feel especially unhappy about refusing me?” 

“Well,” Combeferre said, throwing a sidelong glance at Enjolras. “Because of his particular sentiments towards you.” 

“Because he— _desires_ me, is what you mean,” Enjolras said, tiring of evasions. 

“Desire is not action,” Combeferre said, keeping his voice neutral. “Even if it became action—which of course it would not in this case—it would be, at worst, a harmless vice, for a man to have such relations with another man.” 

“For anyone to use another’s body for pleasure, if they have no regard at all for that other person’s ideals and principles, if they see the other only as a fleshy object and nothing more—that is a degradation,” Enjolras said sharply. “Pursuing such a thing is seeking to degrade another.” 

"I agree, but I think you misapprehend the situation if you think Grantaire’s only feeling toward you is lust," Combeferre said, putting a hand on Enjolras’s shoulder. "I think, in his own fashion, he genuinely wishes for your approval and friendship."

"That cannot be," Enjolras objected, uncomfortable. "He believes in nothing, hopes for nothing. He has no use for my ideals, so how can he want my approval?" 

"It is contradictory, but people often are. I do believe he esteems you. I cannot quarrel with that sentiment, though I wish he would find a better way of acting on it." 

"I wish he would develop principles and a sense of duty, but I fear that may be too much to ask of Grantaire," Enjolras retorted. 

"It is never too much to ask of anyone," Combeferre said staunchly. "Everyone has the potential for that, as _you_ of all people know. You still expect Marius Pontmercy to join us."

"He's a good fellow,” Enjolras said with assurance. “He may have some silly notions, but his heart is in the right place."

Combeferre chuckled. "That may be, but I would not care to vouch for the location of his head."

"Marius is confused, that is all. He is not _indifferent._ "

"Grantaire is not wholly indifferent—he cares for his friends, after all.” 

“He does,” Enjolras conceded, “but that rarely moves him to any worthy actions, or to any broader concern.” 

“Perhaps some day, he will allow it to,” said Combeferre. 

"I would like to believe that," Enjolras said, frowning. "I would like that very much."


	7. Combeferre

_**Combeferre, 1824** _

Enjolras never paid any mind to the weather, except in so far as it was necessary to avoid freezing to death. But today was an exception. It was a crisp, invigorating late-autumn afternoon. The air itself seemed to thrum with some obscure but vital purpose.

He was sitting outside in a shabby Latin Quarter café with a handful of new acquaintances, some from his civil code lecture, some who studied other subjects. The conversation had turned to France’s Spanish Expedition the previous year. 

Enjolras felt oddly satisfied, as if he was finally where he fit. He had come to Paris only a week before and had just begun classes. The first day or two had been full of hectic emptiness. Everything seemed in chaos; nothing seemed to have any meaning. His dutiful letter to his parents had been vague and, perhaps, slightly gloomy.

But now, for the first time, Enjolras had a sense of both suitability and promise, a feeling of having slid a key into its lock and opened the door.

The discussion was cautious, almost timid. Enjolras wondered if his classmates were afraid of trouble with the police, or simply afraid of quarreling.

“You must admit, though,” said one bold soul, after some tepid back-and-forth, “the victory in Spain was impressive. Louis XVIII did what Napoleon failed to do. One must respect that, whatever other opinions one may hold.”

Enjolras would not have called the Spanish Expedition a victory at all, except in the narrow military sense. It was a defeat for liberty, and a disgrace upon France, that she, under pressure from the ultraroyalists, had supported a foreign absolute monarch against a people seeking their freedom.

He was about to say something to that effect when he was preempted. “Does anything Bonaparte failed to do deserve admiration, then?” said a voice that came from Enjolras’s left. 

Enjolras turned to look in the direction of the voice. Its source was a tall, broad-shouldered student, perhaps two or three years older than Enjolras, who sprawled in his chair as if he had been casually thrown against it. The man had black hair that fell into his eyes, and his face was brown and wind-burned. His gentle half-smile softened the effect of his slightly sharp tone. Enjolras did not recall having been introduced to him. He had not learned all the names of those who had gotten swept up in their trip to this café. 

“Louis XVIII did use Bonaparte’s generals in the Spanish Expedition,” the man added, “so perhaps he ought not to be considered a competitor to Bonaparte, so much as a pupil.”

Several others at the table were looking at the man with a combination of interest and irritation.

“And regardless,” continued the man, “doesn’t the question of whether a military action deserves admiration depend on its purpose? A skillfully waged campaign, if unworthy in its goals, deserves no esteem, only scorn.” 

Enjolras admired the man’s willingness to speak. Prudence was all very well, but an excess of prudence would mean nothing was ever talked of, let alone done. He was not certain if he agreed with the man’s argument, though, as much as he deplored the French invasion of Spain. “Don’t you think any valor deserves some esteem,” Enjolras said, “even if it serves the wrong purpose?”

The man’s gaze settled on him. Enjolras had the uncomfortable sensation of being studied, appraised and classified.

“I don’t think I do believe that,” the man said, sounding more considering than combative. “Valor usually means taking up arms. It means the violence of man against man. For such a thing to be admirable, its purpose must be noble enough to…oh, not to compensate, for nothing can truly compensate for it, but it must _necessitate_ it. The violence itself cannot be glorious. Any glory must come from the ends, if the means are violent.”

Enjolras dimly realized that some at their table looked confused and others looked bored, but he did not particularly care. “But often, where you find violence, you also find courage, loyalty and sacrifice,” he said. “Should we not honor such virtues, even if we disagree with the ends? Or does the bloodshed corrupt everything, including the honor of those who participate in it, unless the ends are to our liking?”

The man hesitated, and Enjolras pressed his advantage. “That seems rather hard on the soldier, don’t you think? If his cause is faulty, then he is not only misguided, not only wrong, but also unworthy of respect.”

“But not of pity,” said the man.

“Pity will not suffice,” Enjolras returned. “Pity is insulting to those who wish to know they’ve done their duty honorably.” 

“But many have not,” the man said, unfazed. “Many have followed a false duty out of vanity, or slavishness, or bloodthirst—sometimes their own, sometimes their leaders’, but the result is the same. Why should we praise valor in service of such ends?” 

“Bloodthirst,” a student named Vernot said, frowning. “That goes too far. Do you think concern for the glory of France and her kings is bloodthirst?”

Ah. A royalist, then. Enjolras wanted to argue with him, but he wanted even more to respond to the look on his interlocutor’s face. The man’s expression was one of mild challenge, stubborn without bellicosity. “Because the capacity for such valor, even if misused, proves humanity’s potential for greatness,” Enjolras said, disregarding Vernot. “That potential is the source of our true duties. Shouldn’t we praise it wherever it is found?”

The man smiled, but it was somehow a very serious smile. “I don’t say you are wholly wrong about that, but I would prefer to say we derive our duties from humanity’s potential for _goodness_ , and the happiness that comes from goodness,” the man began.

“The two of you may enjoy philosophizing,” Vernot interrupted, “but when it is time for action, one’s duty becomes plain. Every Frenchman’s duty is to defend the honor of France. Any blood shed for that purpose is shed nobly.”

Another student, Saint-Yves, polished off the last of his wine before saying, “The honor of France is not the same as the pride of those who rule her.”

Vernot began to object with vehemence. Enjolras tried to follow the argument, but the serious man commanded his attention irresistibly. Enjolras’s gaze kept returning to him, watching the looks of patient amusement and benevolent exasperation play across his face as he listened to the overlapping conversations around him.

After a few moments of this, Enjolras looked over once more, only to find that the serious man’s eyes were on him. He smiled and pulled his chair around the table, closer to Enjolras. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced,” he said. “I am Sébastien Combeferre.”

“Gabriel Enjolras,” said Enjolras. “You are at the law school?”

“No, I study medicine,” said Combeferre. He added, in a tone that was somehow both grave and impish, “Perhaps that is why I am less keen on valor than some. It falls to doctors to stitch the wounds and handle the corpses of the valiant, you see.”

“Presumably they have the stomach for it,” Enjolras said wryly, “or else they would not survive the ordeal of medical school.”

Combeferre looked him in the eye. “The stomach, yes, but having the heart for it is more difficult.” Enjolras suddenly felt ashamed, as if Combeferre, despite his neutral manner, had rebuked him in some way. But Combeferre kept talking as if nothing was wrong. “So you are a law student?” Enjolras nodded. “From the South, I take it, from your accent? I am as well. Marseilles. And you?”

“The same,” Enjolras said. He paused, then added, “My father grew up in Aiguilhe, though, and I spent some time there as a child. Our closest neighbors were a husband and wife who were very kind, very charitable. Very good, and very happy because of their goodness. Once, when a man was taken to prison for his debts, and his wife and children lost their house, this couple took them in.”

“I sense that this is not the whole story,” Combeferre said.

“It is,” Enjolras said, “but the point of it is that the man was still caged and tormented, and his family was still punished. For his debts. Do you think that was just?”

“No,” said Combeferre.

“And yet, this couple’s goodness could do nothing to change it,” Enjolras said. “The only way to change it would be to change the law, and the only way to change the law would be to change how our society is governed—and wouldn’t that endeavor require valor?”

Combeferre’s brow furrowed, his lips pursed, and he let out a sigh. “It would,” he said. “I don’t deny that. But why _should_ valor be required? Rousseau would have it that man is born free, yet everywhere he is in chains. Born free. That’s what humans are, or they should be. They shouldn’t need feats of greatness to strike off their chains.”

That was right, so right that Enjolras could think of no quick reply. “The necessity for greatness is awful,” he said finally. “But—the necessity still exists.” That was a strange thought, that greatness was to be mourned as the consequence of a grim fact, rather than cherished as an ideal.

“It does, now,” Combeferre said. “I hope it will not always be so. Someday people will be able to turn their minds to art, science, philosophy, love, anything but the valiant pursuit of liberty. Someday liberty, instead of being bought with blood and horror, will be as natural and unsought as breathing.”

“Taken for granted,” Enjolras said, momentarily dazzled by the prospect, wondering what it would even look like. “Yes.” He smiled, then, and Combeferre blinked as if in surprise before smiling back.

Enjolras was reminded of the others’ presence—he had utterly forgotten them—when they began dispersing. He looked up to see Saint-Yves pulling his chair closer to Enjolras and Combeferre.

“It would seem that the two of you share my sympathies,” he said, with a slight smile. “I didn’t know Vernot was such an ultra, or else I would have avoided him more assiduously. His talk is highly irritating, even if it doesn't do any harm."

"It does not," said Enjolras, "nor does ours, which is not wholly to my liking."

Combeferre raised his eyebrows.

"There ought to be something to do besides simply talking," Enjolras said, in response.

"Such as?" Combeferre sounded amused, which was annoying, but he also sounded genuinely curious. Combeferre had an unusual ability to convey many shades of emotion and meaning at the same time, Enjolras noted.

“At the very least, we could make an effort to reach the ears of those outside our immediate circles,” Enjolras said.

“A friend of mine used to run a newspaper,” Saint-Yves said, “before he finished school and got married. A very informal business, of course, and irregularly printed.”

“That sounds less than ideal,” said Enjolras.

“Oh, yes, it would have been better if he’d put it out regularly,” agreed Saint-Yves cheerfully, “but he was always a bit absent-minded and scatterbrained.”

Enjolras, struck by a thought, said, “Do you know what print shop he would use?”

Saint-Yves grinned. “I can find out,” he said. “If your intention is that we should start one of our own, I would certainly be eager to join the effort.”

“That was indeed my thought,” Enjolras said.

Combeferre looked thoughtful. “It would be a beneficial thing to do, certainly."

“Yes,” said Saint-Yves, “but you both do realize that it is a risk, do you not? We must not be found out, especially not with Monsieur d’Artois taking the throne.”

“Of course,” Combeferre said, with an insouciant shrug. 

“Naturally,” said Enjolras.

“I can find out about the print shop by tomorrow,” said Saint-Yves. “If you would care to meet here at around midday, we could talk further then? Excellent. But now, I must go try to convince my Roman law professor that I had a perfectly virtuous and unassailable excuse for missing yesterday’s lecture. Good afternoon to you both, and I will see you tomorrow.”

Enjolras and Combeferre took only five minutes after Saint-Yves left to become embroiled in an argument over the precise implications of the section of the Charter of 1814 that stated that the laws existing in 1814 and not in conflict with the Charter remained in force.

“I would like very much to stay here and demonstrate how wrong you are,” Combeferre said, with a hint of a smile, after some thorny debate, “but I had planned to go look at a pair of swans I saw underneath the Pont Neuf. It’s an unusual time for their presence in Paris. I went to a very interesting lecture on swans a few months ago, at the Jardin des Plantes, and I wanted to see if I could observe some behaviors the lecturer spoke of.” He paused. “Would you like to come with me?”

“Observing swans,” Enjolras said, raising his eyebrows. What an odd pastime for a grown man. 

Something in his voice must have betrayed his thoughts, because Combeferre scowled. “Yes,” he said testily. “Swans are fascinating creatures. They are intensely loyal, they often mate for life, they have great symbolic and artistic significance, they are highly aggressive in defense of their young, they have unusual social habits—”

“I did not mean to offend you,” Enjolras said, when it began to sound like Combeferre was going to punish him by telling him everything there was to know about swans.

To his faint surprise, he realized he was sincere, even understating. While Enjolras was courteous as a matter of habit, the thought of giving offense did not ordinarily trouble him much. But somehow, he truly did not want to offend Combeferre. 

Unfortunately, Combeferre looked only partially mollified. “I am not offended,” he said, but it sounded very much like a grumble.

“I would be happy to come with you,” Enjolras said, feeling rather sorry, “and hear more about why I am so terribly wrong.”

Combeferre nodded and murmured an assent, but he did not smile. He looked as though he didn’t particularly want Enjolras to come along, after all, but was too polite to say so.

Enjolras felt even sorrier, and was uneasy about it. He could not recall the last time he felt so desirous of being liked. He would have considered such a desire to be weakness, or simply silliness. 

They walked in awkward silence to the Pont Neuf, where Combeferre pointed out the bright white swans, gliding under the bridge.

“They have a nest,” Combeferre said, sounding awed. There was no trace of remaining pique in his voice, and Enjolras was glad of it. “It’s exceptionally rare for this time of year—nesting season is usually in spring. I hadn’t anticipated this.”

Enjolras, squinting his eyes, saw the gray fuzzy head of a cygnet peeping out of the nest.

Combeferre drew closer still to the nest, and Enjolras followed, somewhat entertained by Combeferre’s intentness. He was staring at the nest, which was now less than an arm’s length away, as if it contained the secret to some important philosophical mystery.

“Oh, damn,” said Combeferre suddenly.

“What?”

Combeferre pointed, and Enjolras followed his gesture to see a fox by the riverbank, creeping up on the swans.

“I wonder if I can divert its attention,” Combeferre said. “I would hate to see the cygnet get eaten. Foxes are their natural predators, you know. ”

Enjolras did not know, but he picked up a stick from the ground and flung it at the fox. The fox squealed in pain, which drew the swans’ attention.

In an admirable display of coordinated tactics, one of the swans flew straight at the fox, chasing it away before returning to the nest. Its mate, meanwhile, flew at Enjolras.

Enjolras barely had time to put up his hand in defense before the swan struck, pecking and latching onto his finger. Wincing at the pain, Enjolras flailed his arm vigorously, again and again, while Combeferre batted at the creature ineffectually, before he finally succeeded in dislodging the swan from his hand. 

The swan circled round in front of him, squawked once, as if to say, “Let that be a lesson to you,” and returned to its nest. 

“Are you badly hurt?” Combeferre cried, seizing Enjolras’s bloody hand to inspect it.

A chorus of cheers and titters broke out from behind Enjolras and Combeferre. Enjolras turned his head to see that they had acquired an audience: a cluster of gamins, all of whom appeared delighted by the spectacle of Enjolras battling a swan.

Ignoring their giggling, Combeferre shook his head. “This needs to be bound up,” he said. “Come to my apartment, I can do it there.”

“Very well,” said Enjolras. They walked away, passing the gamins, who were now standing in a circle. In the center was a gamine of about eleven years. She was doing a dramatic imitation of Enjolras trying to fling the swan off his hand, to the immense glee of her friends.

Enjolras decided to adopt the philosophical view that it was a good thing his misadventure had brought satisfaction to someone.

Combeferre, once at his apartment, seemed more inclined to remorse than laughter. “I should not have brought you so close to their nest,” he said, examining the swelling in Enjolras’s finger. “They usually don’t attack unprovoked, but they can be very militant while protecting their young.”

“Their cooperative defense was most impressive,” Enjolras said dryly. “They dispatched both the fox and myself with the greatest of ease.”

Combeferre, wrapping a bandage around Enjolras’s hand, said, “Why did you come along, anyway? You had no interest in seeing the swans.”

“Because I wanted to show you that I was not sneering at you, before, when you said you wanted to observe them,” Enjolras said, feeling extremely foolish. 

Combeferre could not fully suppress his smile. “You _were_ sneering,” he said.

“Not at you,” objected Enjolras, his cheeks growing warm.

“At the swans, then,” Combeferre said, his smile turning into a full-fledged laugh. 

“The swans have avenged themselves,” Enjolras said, nodding at his injured hand, still in Combeferre’s grip even though he had finished bandaging it. “You need not defend their honor.” 

“I suppose not,” Combeferre said, not letting go of Enjolras’s hand. “It was kind of you,” he added, rather clumsily.

Enjolras smiled. They were both silent for several moments, but somehow it was not an awkward silence. He looked around Combeferre’s room, eyeing his bookcase appreciatively. “You certainly have many books,” he observed after a while. “And—is that a _skeleton_?”

Combeferre flushed.

“I did not mean—” Enjolras quickly began, not wanting to insult Combeferre’s passions yet again.

“No, no,” Combeferre said, smiling. “I know it takes people by surprise. My landlord doesn’t like it at all. In fact I have been thinking of changing lodgings, since he is rather a nuisance about it.”

“My landlord has several empty rooms,” Enjolras said, “and neither he nor his wife would make a fuss over anything unless you or your guests are very noisy.”

“I believe the problem with my, er, guests, is rather that they’re too quiet for comfort,” Combeferre said sardonically, gesturing at the skeleton.

The next day they met with Saint-Yves, who had the name of a print shop, and began planning out their newspaper. Their planning was helped along by Combeferre moving into Enjolras’s building that very week, skeleton and all. Every evening from then on found Enjolras ensconced in Combeferre’s room, or vice versa, discussing politics and philosophy and history, as well as whatever eccentric subject Combeferre had gotten into his head that particular day. Enjolras found Combeferre’s digressions on those topics surprisingly interesting, perhaps because Combeferre had such a talent for making even the most arcane knowledge connect to some central human concern.

That they were often on opposite sides of whatever question they were discussing in no way diminished the pleasure Enjolras had in their talks. It was quite the reverse. Combeferre shared the same republican politics, the same _purpose_ , as Enjolras. But he had different ideas both as to method and as to the breadth of that purpose. He comprehended more in his idea of the Republic than Enjolras had ever done before.

“Art is a beneficial spur to the conscience,” Enjolras said, one night, after Combeferre told him of some lecture he had attended by a famous (so said Combeferre; Enjolras took his word for it) artist and scholar. “It can move people to action.”

Combeferre smiled. “But that is not its only purpose,” he said. “I would say that the point of action is to create a world where people may make art.” 

For Combeferre, the Republic was education, science, art, philosophy; all of these were not merely useful tools, they were the ends in themselves. Enjolras, who at the start of each conversation was always inclined to say, “Yes, but this isn’t truly relevant, or urgent,” often would often end by becoming enraptured with whatever seemingly impractical pursuit had struck Combeferre’s fancy.

One evening they fell to discussing the execution of Louis XVI. “The death penalty is a barbarism,” said Enjolras, “and ought to be outlawed, but I agree with those who held that it was a cruel necessity, during a time of transition, to safeguard the nation.” 

Combeferre was more inclined to align himself with Condorcet. “It is true that bloodshed is sometimes necessary, but I am not wholly convinced it was in that case.” He looked down, chewing on his lip. “And even if I were…well, even necessity is not enough to fully reconcile me to bloodshed. Perhaps that’s weakness, I don’t know.”

Something in Combeferre’s tone sent a pang through Enjolras. It was not that he could not understand Combeferre; it was that he did, all too well. “Necessity is a tyrant, demanding that people betray their dearest ideals,” he said. “There is no weakness in wishing to rebel against it.”

“Necessity makes people betray each other, as well as their ideals,” Combeferre said. “Didn’t you have to study Dante at school? Traitors go to the ninth circle of hell.”

“The most severely punished were those who betrayed their liege-lords,” said Enjolras, remembering his lessons. “Not precisely a republican notion.” 

“A republican's ultimate allegiance is to humanity itself,” said Combeferre, fiddling with a sheet of paper in his hands. “Killing anyone betrays that allegiance.” He turned to look out the window. “Traitors in the Inferno were encased in pure ice, cut off from all life and human relations, and why not? They violated the core of those relations, man’s trust in man, man’s love for man. But if that betrayal is necessary to elevate man…”

Combeferre trailed off before shaking his head. “It is necessary,” he said. “No change will come without revolution, though I wish it might. We will probably see such a revolution—indeed, I must hope that we will see it, or more than see it.”

“I would hope to take part in it,” Enjolras said quietly.

“As would I,” Combeferre sighed. “And no revolution can be had without bloodshed. But I cannot reconcile the necessity with the brutality. I cannot make anything coherent or logical out of the idea that bloodshed is necessary, and yet an abomination, deserving of the utmost punishment. If both of those things are true, and I believe they are, then what can anyone do?” 

Enjolras's thoughts whirled in stormy perplexity without pattern or form, as he tried to fully take in Combeferre's meaning. But one truth shone out from the muddle like lightning against a cloud-streaked sky. "That is plain," he said. "One must simply follow each principle to its logical conclusion. The revolutionary must commit his treacherous violence. And then he must freely accept the punishment for it. Those who want to make revolutions must 'abandon all hope' for themselves, and live for the hope of those who come after."

"They must be expelled from society, then? For a necessary act? That is harsh indeed."

"But just." If all men were brothers then all slaughter was fratricide, all deliberate slaughter was betrayal, and such a deep betrayal could only be punished in one way. The logic was inexorable. 

Combeferre shook his head. “I’m not sure I agree. But even if it is just, there must be mercy as well as justice.”

"A truly disinterested revolutionary must not ask for mercy," Enjolras said. "He must embrace justice, to show that his acts are unfit for the new world he has helped bring forth."

"Perhaps he should not ask," Combeferre allowed, "but society may offer mercy freely. Or it may indeed command it. It may say, to the revolutionary, that he is not yet permitted to die or be banished, that he must live, and serve."

Enjolras frowned. "If society did that, it would be the revolutionary's duty to submit," he said, "but why should a free and peaceful world want the revolutionary in it?"

"Because one doesn't cast away a sword after the war. Even after all wars, if such a day should ever come. One hammers it into a plowshare, instead, rather than wasting good metal. All men may learn and improve, whether thieves or murderers or revolutionaries." Combeferre's brow furrowed, and he looked even graver than before, but after a moment he forced a smile. "Perhaps I should not speak of heaven and hell. I have no authority for it, or interest in it. I fear Dante would classify me as a virtuous pagan at best, and consign me to Limbo. Though Limbo always struck me as a pleasant place, far more interesting than Paradise. Socrates is there, and Avicenna. And," he added, "so is Brutus, and he killed his own sons for republican justice."

"The virtuous pagans went unpunished, but they had no hope of divine grace."

"I may be a heretic," said Combeferre, his smile turning real, "but I have greater faith in human grace than in God's."

Their conversation haunted Enjolras for some time after. It did not upset or pain or discomfit him, precisely, but he was unable to forget it. It would come back to him, persistently, at any moment when he had nothing else to concentrate on.

A week afterwards, Enjolras returned to his apartment in the evening to find a letter waiting for him.

He was still clutching the letter when Combeferre burst in, rambling about some new ailment he had seen in his hospital rounds.

“…I’m sorry, I know I’m lecturing,” Combeferre broke off, after a while. “But you are quieter than usual, Enjolras. I hope all is well?”

Enjolras cleared his throat. “Ah,” he said. “I just received some news. My parents—”

Combeferre stepped closer, taking his hand. “What happened?”

“They died,” Enjolras said. “They were killed, in a carriage accident.” He gestured vaguely with the letter. In truth he had not seen too much of his parents for years, since he began school, and even before then, his relations with them had been peaceful but somehow distant. 

Still, it was a shock. 

Combeferre said nothing, but guided Enjolras to the only chair in the room, sitting him down.

After Enjolras remained silent for several minutes, Combeferre spoke. “I am very sorry, my friend. They were in Marseilles?” 

“Yes, their business kept them there,” Enjolras said. “More my mother’s, really—they took it over from her father, even though he disapproved of their marriage. She is a merchant’s daughter, and my father’s parents were peasants in Aiguilhe,” Enjolras explained, in response to Combeferre’s questioning look. Then he winced. “Was. She _was_ a merchant’s daughter.”

“A marriage for love rather than grim practicality, then,” Combeferre said, squeezing his hand.

“I will have to travel to Marseilles,” said Enjolras, after a minute. “The funeral will be done before I arrive, of course. I simply will have to settle—”

“Would you like me to accompany you?” Combeferre’s voice cut in. 

“To _Marseilles_?” It was a long journey, the trip would likely take more than two weeks, and for Combeferre to offer such a thing—

“If you wish it.”

Enjolras could not stop the tear sliding down his face. He looked away, blinking hard, and felt Combeferre’s arm slip around his shoulders. 

It took several minutes and uncounted deep breaths before Enjolras trusted himself enough to say anything. “I would welcome your company, of course,” he said, “but you could not possibly leave your studies now, could you?”

“Yes, I could,” Combeferre said. “I will.”

“I can manage alone, of course, you needn’t worry—”

“I am not worried. I merely want to help you, in any way I can.”

“I—” Enjolras began, and then realized he did not know what he was going to say. He gripped Combeferre's hand tightly, wishing for words. 

Combeferre seemed to take his meaning anyway. “You need not bear this alone," he said. "This, or anything else." 

Enjolras believed him.

***

**_Combeferre, 1832_ **

Enjolras surveyed the barricade, pensive. Their battle was lost. He had seen it for himself on his reconnaissance. He had seen the city quiescent; he had seen the barricade outmatched; he had seen the old woman at her window, a living reminder of those who might be left unable to defend themselves because the insurgents died to defend their ideals. 

But he still had to think how best to make it a worthwhile loss, how to make the protest of each corpse count the most.

He looked over to where Combeferre was tending to the wounded. Enjolras saw again the pain on Combeferre’s face before Enjolras shot the artillery sergeant, and wondered if Combeferre would live long enough to forgive him that.

He walked over to where Bossuet and Feuilly were making cartridges. Bossuet smiled at him. Bossuet could smile in the face of any misfortune in life, so why should death be different? Enjolras squeezed his shoulder, and looked at Feuilly, who said, “We’ll be ready, my friend,” as if believing that Enjolras needed the reassurance.

“That was never in any doubt,” Enjolras said. 

Joly, next to Bossuet as always, was staring into Mme Hucheloup’s mirror, his tongue hanging out. “What ailment do you have?” Enjolras asked, suddenly wanting to laugh. Cannons, real and brutal, did not deter Joly, but fictitious illnesses would torment him to the grave, it seemed.

“I am not certain,” Joly said. “But,” he added cheerfully, “in any case, it is unlikely to have the time to be fatal.” He grinned at Enjolras, who felt a stab of sorrow. It must have shown on his face, because Joly said, “Oh, don’t worry, I’d much rather die by gun or bayonet-thrust than waste away in a bed. I can’t imagine any doctor feeling differently, to be honest.” 

Enjolras returned to his original spot, right beside Courfeyrac and Courfeyrac’s arsenal. “Impressive, isn’t it?” Courfeyrac said, indicating his weapons.

Enjolras looked at Courfeyrac, perched on his pile of stones, his face dusted with gunpowder but as mischievous as ever. “Very,” he said.

Courfeyrac’s expression softened. “My dear friend, do not look so sad and solemn,” he said, pressing Enjolras’s hand. “Yes, this is a serious thing we do, no doubt, but I would not be any place else.” 

Courfeyrac smiled at him, and Enjolras, as so often was the case when he was with Courfeyrac, could not help smiling back. That was Courfeyrac, even here, even now. 

Combeferre came over to them, having dressed the last wound for the moment. The three of them remained in silence for a time, before Enjolras said, “I will take another look inside, to see how we might hold our defenses the longest.”

Combeferre came with him. They inspected the doors and windows and walls carefully, yet again, talking through their tactics. 

“That all sounds well,” Combeferre said, finally. His eyes were grim and his mouth was tight, and all Enjolras could think was that this was unnatural, for Combeferre to be here.

Combeferre would call it unnatural for any of them, of course, but it was the worst for him. Necessary, perhaps—Combeferre himself acknowledged it as such, though Enjolras would have spared him if it were his decision to make—but still, this was not Combeferre’s rightful place.

Impulsively Enjolras reached up to cup Combeferre’s cheek, searching for words that could properly honor and apologize and thank, that could pay tribute to years of love and veneration and debts too great for satisfaction. 

“The old woman I saw, while returning here,” Enjolras said, finally. “I might not have noticed her, were it not for you.”

Combeferre took Enjolras’s hand from his cheek and pressed it to his lips. He said nothing, simply put a hand on Enjolras’s shoulder to guide him to the door, and they walked out into the day, together.


	8. Jean Prouvaire

**_Jean Prouvaire, 1832_**

Enjolras began the roll call, Combeferre and Courfeyrac jumping in here and there to remind him of a name. The people of the Cougourde, those from the print shops, the artisans, the longshoremen...yes, all accounted for. 

Then he came back to the principals of the ABC: Combeferre, of course, to his right, and Courfeyrac to his left. Enjolras knew they were there but reminding himself of it made him feel as though he were standing on solid ground once more. Joly, examining a deep scratch on his arm worriedly, Bossuet by his side. Feuilly, grave-faced, arms folded, standing at the center of a circle that included Joly, Bossuet, and a few artisans. And then—

"Prouvaire," Enjolras said, looking around. He didn't see Jean Prouvaire anywhere, but surely—

There was no response. 

"Prouvaire!" Enjolras repeated. "Has anyone here seen Jean Prouvaire?" 

Courfeyrac dashed off to check the wounded; Combeferre, grim-faced, made his way to search among the dead. Enjolras surveyed those in front of him again, with a desperate, grasping hope of seeing Prouvaire standing there in a fog, too absorbed to hear his name called, perhaps composing a poem, or worrying over the cholera statistics—

Courfeyrac came back, shaking his head. A moment later Combeferre returned as well, his eyes meeting Enjolras's. 

"He must have been taken prisoner," Enjolras said, voicing what they already knew. 

"They have our friend, but we have their agent.” Combeferre’s expression was, for once, unintelligible to Enjolras. "Are you set on the death of this spy?"

The spy. An exchange. Yes, of course. That was possible. The relief struck him like a blow. 

"Yes," Enjolras said immediately, "but less so than on the life of Jean Prouvaire." Principle demanded the spy’s death. Necessity compelled it. The spy had betrayed the Republic. If he were returned to his friends, he could no doubt inform them of how many men and how much ammunition the barricade had, and who knew what else. And if the barricade fell, the spy could incriminate everyone still living who had defended it.

Enjolras would die for principle, had killed for necessity. Jean Prouvaire was more sacred than either. 

Combeferre was talking about tying a handkerchief to his cane, and going over to offer an exchange, when Enjolras heard an awful sound. 

"Listen," he said, laying a hand on Combeferre's arm. 

Prouvaire’s voice, usually so soft, sounded like a trumpet: "Long live France! Long live the future!" 

Enjolras braced himself. He still flinched when he heard the shots.

"They have killed him!" Combeferre’s cry broke through Enjolras’s shock. His fingers tightened around Combeferre's forearm.

Enjolras turned on the spy, his sorrow hardening within him. "Your friends have just shot you." 

***

**_Jean Prouvaire, 1827_ **

Courfeyrac swept into the Corinthe, knocking over a chair, and causing Enjolras to look up sharply from his conversation with Combeferre and Feuilly.

“Be careful, you clod.” Bahorel’s voice boomed from the corner where he was losing at dominoes to Joly.

Courfeyrac stuck his nose in the air, and replied, in a tone of great hauteur, “I came here to receive homage from my people, not insults.”

At this perfect mimicry of Charles X’s pompous words upon his disastrous review of the National Guard in April, Bahorel could only laugh. “I do not care if you disband us,” he finally replied, still grinning, “so long as you follow the example of our esteemed king, and kindly take care to leave us our weapons.”

“I wonder if such stupidity on the part of our chief opponent is more comforting or demoralizing,” Courfeyrac said, abandoning his role as Charles X. “If a dim-witted king with dim-witted advisors can keep such a tight grip on his scepter, then how awful it shall be if we are ever confronted with an intelligent one.”

“Do you have any new information on voter registrations?” Enjolras asked, changing the subject abruptly. They had all been very busy encouraging eligible voters to register themselves since the passage, in May, of the new law on the compilation of the voter lists.

He must have sounded very eager, because Courfeyrac replied with, “Yes, yes, there’s no need to be so greedy and impatient, my dear _ange vorace_.”

Courfeyrac looked extremely pleased with this clumsy pun, so pleased that Enjolras could not help a faint smile. “We have distributed over four hundred pamphlets on the requirements to register to vote,” Courfeyrac continued. “That’s just what our little group has distributed, of course. It does not include the manuals distributed by the Aide-Toi, le Ciel t’Aidera society, or the pamphlets of the Amis de la Liberté de la Presse, or any other groups.”

“I still don’t think Chateaubriand’s people are actually our allies here,” Bahorel grumbled.

“Four hundred pamphlets,” Feuilly said. “That is excellent news.”

“I still fear people will be frightened away from registering as voters because they may also have to be jurors,” Combeferre put in, looking pensive.

“They will not be,” Enjolras said firmly. “French citizens are not so cowardly as to surrender our rights because we are afraid of the corresponding duties.”

“No,” agreed Feuilly. “But even so, the ministers’ agents may succeed in erasing inconvenient people’s names from the lists.”

“Our pamphlet warns people of that,” Joly pointed out. “So do the Aide-Toi manuals. We are telling everyone to make sure they register themselves and not to trust anyone else to do it for them. They know they must see with their own eyes that their names are on the list.”

“Yes, we warned people. That was a necessary accomplishment,” Enjolras said, frowning. “But we will need to do more to encourage the voters to defy all obstacles to register themselves. If a prefecture cheats a voter out of his registration ten times, he must go back an eleventh.”

“We are already teaching people how to appeal a prefect’s refusal,” Combeferre said.

“Yes,” said Enjolras, “but there are many who, once refused, will not try again, even if the refusal was fraudulent. Perhaps there is a way we can hold dishonest prefecture clerks to account?”

“Their superiors would never punish them, but maybe they could be shamed, or avoided?” Feuilly played with his fork with a thoughtful air as he spoke, his fingers absently twirling it with a careless grace. Enjolras smiled to see him do so. He was very glad and grateful that Feuilly kept returning to their meetings, and gladder still that Feuilly evidently felt more at home around them now.

“Actually,” said Bahorel, “A friend of mine, who shares our sympathies—in fact he’s been working with the Aide-Toi society people—has a friend who is a clerk. I was speaking with him the other day, and I think it’s possible he may know something helpful.”

Enjolras reflected once again how fortunate they were in Bahorel’s friends. “Like what?”

“I do not know,” Bahorel said, “but I’ll take you to meet him, and we can find out. Do you remember that café we went to the day before yesterday?”

That last question was directed at Courfeyrac, who made a face. “That rat hole? Despite my best efforts, the memory still haunts me.”

“It’s an artistic rat hole,” Bahorel said. “You claim to be a Romantic, or have I caught you out in a bourgeois hypocrisy?”

“I confess I share the horribly bourgeois sentiment that being able to breathe without choking on the smell of rotten food is a good thing, yes. Banish me from our Republic in disgrace, if you must, but there it is.”

“We might go there now.” Bahorel looked at his watch. “It’s his usual time, he ought to be there.”

Enjolras, Combeferre and Courfeyrac left the Corinthe with Bahorel. Feuilly remained, as he was to meet with some workers shortly; Joly elected to stay and keep company with Feuilly and another glass of wine.

The “artistic rat hole” was only a short distance from the Corinthe. It was quiet and dank, with only a few people scattered among its many tables. Courfeyrac wrinkled his nose as they entered. Once through the door, Enjolras could hear someone arguing in the far corner of the room, obscured by a pillar. Whoever it was had a soft but very deep voice, and spoke with great vehemence. “Perhaps we are still unable to say these things in public and be heard with respect. But why here—here, among people who seek an end to all tyrannies, who like Isaiah demand nothing less than to break every yoke—why should we pretend that denying the full rights of citizenship to all women is anything less than an abomination, a desecration of all the principles we hold dear?”

Bahorel nudged Enjolras. “That’s him. Jean Prouvaire. Spells his name with an ‘h’ in the middle, by the way, in the medieval fashion.”

The three of them made their way past the pillar. Five men occupied the large table in the dusty, cobweb-strewn corner. Jean Prouvaire, sitting among them, was still talking. He was tall and slender and wide-eyed, and his complexion was very dark. “A rich man may purchase his rights, but even a rich woman cannot do that. At most she may buy rights for her husband or son. She can’t even safeguard her person, not if she has a husband.”

“Oh, come now,” protested another man. “She may seek separation from him if he is cruel to her.”

Prouvaire snorted. “Yes, and we men have decided that if he takes her by force, that is not cruelty. That is simply _claiming his rights_ over her person.”

“You surely can’t expect a husband to restrain his ardor at the whims of his wife,” said a third at their table. “Every woman in France would lead her man around by the nose, denying him each night to extort what she wants from him.”

Prouvaire regarded him with majestic scorn. “But you would expect a wife to surrender herself wholly to the control of her husband. And you talk of extortion? If a woman can ‘extort’ from you by denying you the carnal use of her flesh, then you may as well admit that _you_ , and not she, are the weaker sex.”

The other man’s face reddened. “Look here, you—”

“Jehan!” Bahorel bellowed, interrupting the argument.

Prouvaire turned his head and, recognizing Bahorel, stood up. As he rose, Enjolras saw that Prouvaire was Romantically clad in a velvet doublet, cinched tight around the waist, with a dagger in his belt. The doublet’s cloth was faded, and its color was a dingy green. Its hems were frayed. Enjolras did not need to look at Courfeyrac to know that his friend was valiantly suppressing a shudder.

It was good for Prouvaire that he had stood up, because the man he had called ‘the weaker sex’ decided to prove his strength by trying to punch Prouvaire, who just barely managed to duck.

“You miserable son of a whore,” growled the other man, swinging at him again. “You’re nothing but an animal.”

Prouvaire’s fist shot out, catching the man squarely in the face. Then he pirouetted around to face Enjolras and his friends once more. “Good afternoon, Bahorel,” he said pleasantly.

Prouvaire’s attacker, who had reeled backwards, regained his balance and came at Prouvaire once more; when Prouvaire tried to hit him, the man grabbed his arm. The two fell to the ground in a graceless, flailing heap.

Bahorel sighed. “I’ve told him not to leave his elbow sticking out when he hits.” With two quick strides, he reached Prouvaire’s side, collared the attacker, and pulled him off Prouvaire as if he were a small yapping dog. Courfeyrac followed after him, brandishing his walking stick.

Two of the others at the table began to move away, grumbling. The one remaining staggered forward drunkenly and kicked Prouvaire, who was still on the ground, in the stomach. Enjolras moved to intercede but Combeferre, who was standing closer, got there first. He clumsily seized the man kicking Prouvaire by the shoulders, pulling him away. The man whirled out of Combeferre’s grasp and punched him in the nose.

Enjolras caught Combeferre with one arm and brought his attacker down with a vicious kick to the kneecap, before dragging Combeferre off to the side.

“How badly does it hurt?” Enjolras wiped some of the blood off Combeferre’s face with his shirt cuff.

“Bllrrghh,” replied Combeferre, spitting out blood that had dripped into his mouth. “Not bad. I don’t think it’s broken.”

Enjolras tilted Combeferre’s chin to get a better look. The nose was swollen, and turning a darker red by the moment. “Joly should look at it.”

“Take this.” Courfeyrac appeared next to Enjolras as if he had been conjured, handing Combeferre a handkerchief.

Enjolras looked over Courfeyrac’s shoulder to see the man who had first attacked Prouvaire and his companion who had punched Combeferre in the nose. They were standing uncertainly in front of Bahorel and Prouvaire.

The two looked at Bahorel, looked at each other, reconsidered their plans, and edged away peacefully in the direction of the door.

Bahorel beamed happily.

“It is good to see you,” Prouvaire said, his voice suddenly very quiet. Enjolras had to lean forward to catch the words.

“These fellows are Enjolras, Combeferre and Courfeyrac,” Bahorel said. “I brought them here specially to meet you. Let us go elsewhere, if you don’t mind. I see you have exercised your usual tact—”

“Better cast out that beam in your own eye, before you talk like that,” Prouvaire interjected, his voice rising again.

“—and made many friends here,” Bahorel continued, unruffled, “but perhaps none that you’d care to meet again.”

“You have scraped your knuckles,” Enjolras suddenly said, noting the blood on Prouvaire’s hand.

“It is nothing,” Prouvaire said, soft-voiced once more.

“Allow us to take you to the Corinthe,” Courfeyrac said. “Our fussy medical student friend—I beg your pardon, Combeferre, our _other_ fussy medical student friend—will be there, and you can get a bandage for your hand, along with a free lecture on your sins.”

“Very well,” Prouvaire said, and it was scarcely more than a mumble. Enjolras marveled at the transformation. A few brief minutes ago, the man had been fighting with all the vigor, if not the skill, of a Spartan, and arguing with a righteous fury that could equal an irate Bahorel. But now Prouvaire seemed positively shy.

Glancing over at Combeferre’s nose, which was still bleeding, Enjolras said, “We should be off.”

When they reached the Corinthe, Feuilly had left, and Joly had just finished his sixth glass of wine for the evening—but was sober enough to admonish Combeferre. “I expect this sort of reckless injury from Bahorel, but you should know better, my friend.” He sounded very serious, for Joly, though the impact of his sermon was diminished by his slurred words.

“Combeferre is too corruptible by those wilder than he,” Grantaire said, and if Joly was on his sixth glass of wine, it was evidently because he was keeping up with Grantaire, or attempting to. “He does not strike sparks himself, but he is flammable nonetheless. When he was a boy his mother probably despaired of him because he would always play with the rougher element, though he himself was never rough, and we see him repeating the same sorry pattern here.” He gestured expansively with his wineglass in the direction of Enjolras and Bahorel. “It won’t do, Combeferre. Desmoulins would have done better if he had never met Robespierre. Leave the fire to the gods, Prometheus, for we mortals have only ever been scorched by it, much as we may love its glow.”

Combeferre raised his eyebrows, but since Joly was still fussing over his nose, his ability to speak was hampered, and he kept silent.

Grantaire was in a strange mood tonight, and Enjolras was in no humor to pay it any mind. Deliberately, he turned away from Grantaire’s mocking or melancholic gaze—it was always difficult to be certain which, with Grantaire—and back to Joly.

Bahorel, as if to change the subject, said, with forceful enthusiasm, “Joly, this is Jehan Prouvaire—”

“Jehan spelled with an ‘h,’” Prouvaire specified.

“Jehan banged his hand up against some fool’s face,” Bahorel said, looking at Prouvaire with exasperated fondness, “and he could use a bandage for it.”

Joly seized a clean dishcloth from Matelote as she passed by, smiling apologetically as she rolled her eyes and swatted him. “Does anyone have anything to cut this up with?”

“Here,” said Prouvaire. He drew the dagger from his belt with a flourish and used it to cut a ribbon off the dishcloth.

“I see your dagger serves a practical purpose as well as a Romantic one,” Combeferre said, looking amused.

“Of course!” Prouvaire winced as Joly wrapped the strip of cloth tightly around his hand. “I utterly reject the narrow, prejudiced notion that Romanticism is by nature impractical. Romanticism is the recognition of Truth,” he said, and Enjolras could hear the capitalized ‘T,’ “and is therefore the most practical philosophy of all.”

“Hear, hear,” said Bahorel, smiling. “Speaking of practicality, Jehan. There’s a particular reason we wanted to speak with you. You mentioned you had a friend who is a prefecture clerk.”

“A clerk by day for his bread, a poet by night for his soul, yes,” said Prouvaire.

“What are his political opinions?”

“He shares mine, more or less.”

Enjolras leaned forward, about to speak, but then caught himself—perhaps it would be better to let Bahorel ask for this favor.

“Good,” said Bahorel, throwing Enjolras a glance that said he had been right to keep his mouth shut. “We were hoping you could ask him to do something for us.”

“Oh?”

“Does he know which of his colleagues have been erasing names from the voter lists?”

Prouvaire frowned. “Perhaps. If he does not know, he could certainly find out.”

“Can you ask him to? We’re getting voters to register themselves, you see, and we want to help them avoid the cheats and the frauds.”

Prouvaire slowly shook his head. “He would get in trouble at work,” he said. “They would find out if he began asking questions, and especially if his questions were followed by people avoiding certain clerks.”

“You might ask him to take the risk,” Enjolras said, unable to keep silent any longer.

“I will not do that. He has a wife; he cannot risk the loss of his livelihood.”

“Is that not for him to decide?” Bahorel said, looking unsurprised at Prouvaire’s answer.

“Not when others depend on him. And if I ask, he will feel obliged to help me, as a friend. I will not put him in that position.”

“If he shares our aims, he will understand that they are worth some sacrifice,” Enjolras said.

Prouvaire looked obdurate, and Courfeyrac sighed. “Come now, Prouvaire. I understand your reluctance. Truly. I sympathize with it. But there is a larger point here, and I know you can see it. What of the future? They’re bound to call for elections soon, and then what happens if all but the most conservative voters are struck from the lists? If this man can help in some small way, don’t you think he would _want_ to? It’s his future at stake as much as anyone else’s. Why take that right from him?”

This appeal, voiced in Courfeyrac’s most persuasive tones, had the desired effect on Prouvaire: he frowned and looked down, seemingly uncertain. But his confusion lasted only a moment. “I am sorry to be disobliging, but I will not do as you ask.” 

And with that, he rose, bid them all a good evening, and left. 

“Well,” Joly said, after a moment of silence, “he’s an odd one even by your usual standards, Bahorel.”

“I’ll try to persuade him,” Bahorel said. “Perhaps I’ll invite him here again. I will not attempt to bully Jehan—it would not work, in any case—but maybe we can bring him over to our opinion, if he is willing to be convinced.”

“I like him,” offered Grantaire. “Too soft for a revolutionary, and too bohemian for anything else. A strange palette of clashing colors.”

“The same could be said of his clothes,” Courfeyrac said, with a pained look.

Enjolras smiled. “His dress is rather unconventional, yes.”

“So speaks the man who has obviously forgotten that barbers exist,” Courfeyrac snorted. “And I will not even attempt to discuss that _thing_ round your neck.”

Enjolras looked down. “My cravat?”

“Oh, is that what you call it? I thought perhaps Gibelotte had hung one of her dishcloths on your neck to let it dry out. Well, if you’re pretending it’s a cravat, you should at least tie it properly. Sit _still_ ,” Courfeyrac commanded, seizing the offending garment. “This is an embarrassment, Enjolras. People will not hear brilliant words of inspiration if they come from someone who looks unfit for human society. You disgrace the Republic with your attire.”

Enjolras frowned. Courfeyrac was being flippant, of course, but as usual there was a tiny grain of legitimacy beneath his heaps of persiflage. “You are right. I will take greater care in the future.”

Courfeyrac, finishing with the cravat and sitting back, gave a catlike grin. “I wonder what else I can make you do by threatening you with disgrace to the Republic. This deserves further experiment.”

Combeferre, who had said nothing during their argument with Prouvaire, pulled himself to his feet. “It is getting late, and I have to be at the hospital early tomorrow morning.”

“I will go back with you,” said Enjolras.

Combeferre remained quiet as they began the walk to their building. It was Enjolras who finally broke the silence. “Do you think Prouvaire was right? That we were wrong—that I was being cold-hearted?”

“I have never thought you cold-hearted,” said Combeferre. “Single-minded, yes, and sometimes excessively so, but that is a different thing entirely. And I don’t think you were wrong, but I also do not think Prouvaire was wrong.”

“If you were in his place, would you have answered us as he did?” Enjolras demanded.

“No,” Combeferre said. “I feel for him, but no, I would not. We must be willing to brave some personal pain, if we are to create a free world.”

“But you think he is not wrong.”

Combeferre smiled. “I think it is easy to be blasé about pain that is not yours. Not that you are blasé, or unwilling to bear pain yourself, but—if one is considering a risk, a sacrifice, then it is good to have a reminder of the worth of whatever one is sacrificing.”

Enjolras had to concede this, though he still felt disgruntled. “One must also remember the worth of what one is sacrificing _for_ ,” he said, knowing he sounded mulish, and receiving confirmation of this from Combeferre’s face. Combeferre had developed the ability to rebuke him, not only without saying a word, but also without looking angry or upset in the slightest. It would have been an aggravating quality in anybody else.

On this occasion, it was very nearly aggravating in Combeferre himself.

The next evening, Jean Prouvaire came back to the Corinthe. He was unaccompanied, and halted uncomfortably when he saw Enjolras sitting alone in a corner by a window.

Prouvaire looked as though he wanted to run away and avoid the awkwardness of an encounter unsmoothed by Bahorel. But it was too late to do so without rudeness: Enjolras’s eyes had met his, and there was no pretending otherwise.

“Good evening,” Enjolras said, when Prouvaire had made his way over to him.

“Bahorel said he was coming here,” Prouvaire mumbled, as if to excuse his presence. “I saw him earlier today in class.”

“Bahorel was in _class_?” Stranger things had happened, of course, such as…well, perhaps not.

Prouvaire nodded, a pale hint of a smile touching his lips.

“So you are a law student, then?” Enjolras had not seen Prouvaire in class before, but then, it had been some time since he had attended class himself.

“Yes, I started at the law school last year. Bahorel says you are as well.”

“Yes,” said Enjolras, wondering when they were going to run out of empty pleasantries and get to the point—but perhaps it would be better to wait for that until Bahorel arrived. “You came from Marseilles, I judge by your accent?”

“As you did, I’d wager,” Prouvaire said, “though—my family came from Haiti before they settled in Marseilles.” He said this last with a touch of defiance, as if daring Enjolras to say something insulting.

Enjolras was unsurprised; he had guessed something of the kind, by Prouvaire’s looks. "My mother's family were in Haiti, before the revolution," he said, after a pause. "Her parents were shopkeepers there before they came here."

"Your grandparents were of the _petits blancs_ , then?” Prouvaire threw him a sideways glance.

Enjolras, recognizing the term for the white people in Haiti who were not large planters, said, “My grandfather was.”

“And your grandmother?”

“Her father was of the _petits blancs_ ,” Enjolras said, “and her mother was one of the _anciens libres_.”

Prouvaire stared at him. "You do not look it," he said bluntly. “Though I suppose I should not be surprised, since there are many who do not.”

Enjolras gave a slight smile. "My great-grandmother’s family had been free for years, and she was said to be…very fair-skinned,” he explained, choosing to be equally blunt. “And I take after my father's family in any case. They have always been in the south of France, as far as anyone can remember.” 

"Ah," said Prouvaire. “Well, that would explain it. My family fled to France with André Rigaud, before he came back to Saint-Domingue with Napoleon’s army. They were Rigaud’s supporters, you see.”

"Do you agree with Rigaud’s support for Buonaparte, then?" Enjolras guessed not, but felt he had to ask. If Prouvaire was in agreement with a man who had fought for Buonaparte, who had helped Buonaparte in his attempt to strip Haiti of its independence and reinstitute slavery there, then he was not yet committed to the Revolution's ideals; they would need to persuade him. 

Prouvaire looked as though Enjolras had offered him a mortal insult. “Of course not,” he said. “Agree with the strategy of groveling to one’s so-called betters, securing benefits for oneself by trampling one’s so-called inferiors underfoot? I would sooner turn royalist!” 

“It is a strategy that appeals to many who are at the middle, or near the pinnacle, of society’s ranking,” Enjolras observed. “Those who are _near_ the pinnacle often feel tempted to truckle to those who are _at_ the pinnacle, and betray those further down below.”

Prouvaire shook his head. “What temptation could there be in such pettiness, such servility? Kicking those below, in the hopes of pleasing those above—that is the rankest cowardice. It is the safe path, the _moderate_ path, the path of the complacent bourgeois who has neither the strength to tyrannize nor the courage to rebel. There is no glory or dignity in it, and still less is there any lofty feeling, any humanity, any _romance_. It is mere cringing, that is all. A tyrant is vile, but a tyrant’s toady is viler still. The latter has neither the epic grandeur of a Napoleon Bonaparte, nor the all-encompassing love of a Jesus of Nazareth. It has only the illusion of safety—the false, fleeting comfort of an umbrella in a thunderstorm.” 

Prouvaire’s ardor was difficult to resist, especially when one did not have the slightest desire to do so. 

Equally difficult to resist was the temptation to bring the subject back around to their disagreement from yesterday, and Enjolras made no attempt at such self-restraint. “The illusion of safety,” he said. “Yes. Like the illusion that you are keeping your friend the prefecture clerk safe, by keeping him ignorant of how he may help free his country. How is that safety any truer than what you just correctly dismissed?”

This sudden attack evidently was unexpected. Prouvaire turned violet. “He is not the only person I would endanger, by asking him for help,” he said. “There is his wife, as well. She is also my friend, and she would suffer if he lost his work. But she would have no say in his decision to take the risk, although _she_ would require his permission for any piece of business _she_ undertook.”

“Any political act, in a country that is not yet free, requires risking others as well as oneself,” Enjolras said, not without gentleness, for he could not help admiring Prouvaire’s insistence on his scruples, as inconvenient as it was. “Don’t you believe that our ideals are worth such a risk?” An idea then occurred to him. “What makes you think the wife would not _want_ him to do what we ask? Do you believe her to have political opinions that are opposed to ours?”

“No,” Prouvaire said, with obvious reluctance.

“No? Do you then believe her to be devoid of any convictions at all, or of any civic virtues?”

“No,” Prouvaire said, still more reluctantly, “but I have not conversed much with her about politics.”

“Perhaps you should,” Enjolras said, unable to keep a note of triumph out of his voice. “Tell me this, Prouvaire. If you speak with the wife, and she consents to her husband taking this risk, will you ask him to keep an eye out for us, and tell us which clerks to avoid?”

Prouvaire stared at him for a long moment. “I will not browbeat her,” he said finally.

“I would not ask you to,” Enjolras said, annoyed. “Do you believe I would browbeat any person into aiding the cause of liberty—a cause which, more than any other, must be joined freely and unreservedly?”

“Not intentionally, no.”

Enjolras scowled. “How does one browbeat another _unintentionally_? Never mind, you need not explain, but you promise you will ask her?”

After giving Enjolras a considering look, Prouvaire answered, “Yes. I promise.”

Enjolras smiled, feeling strangely happier than the practical value of the concession truly warranted. The wife might still not agree—but even so, Enjolras was content, and so he smiled.

Prouvaire looked away with a blush, apparently struck by another attack of his shyness, which seemed to vanish whenever he was enthused over something or the other, only to reappear once he remembered himself.

“Good evening,” said Combeferre.

Enjolras turned at the sound of his friend’s voice. “Good evening, Combeferre,” he said, as Combeferre sat down to his right.

Prouvaire made as if to rise. “I should leave.”

“Why?” Enjolras said. “Please, stay, if you have no other engagement. Besides, aren’t you planning to meet Bahorel here?”

“I was,” Prouvaire said, his mouth quirking, “but I suspect Bahorel deliberately failed to show up, so that you and I would have to speak.”

Enjolras considered this. “That would be subtler than Bahorel’s usual methods, but then, Bahorel is often subtler than he pretends to be.”

“He is positively devious,” Prouvaire said, “or at least, he is when he has the patience for it. I hope you have not been deceived by his playing the fool.”

“Not in the slightest,” Combeferre replied. “We know Bahorel’s no fool. Foolhardy, yes, on occasion, but never foolish.”

At that juncture Feuilly slid into the seat to the left of Enjolras. “Sixty pamphlets distributed today,” he said, with a rare grin.

“Feuilly,” said Enjolras, “this is Jean Prouvaire. You remember—we went to meet him with Bahorel yesterday.”

“Oh, yes, of course,” said Feuilly, his voice betraying that someone had told him the whole story of their disagreement with Prouvaire. “So, er…” Feuilly trailed off, looking at Enjolras, then at Prouvaire, then back at Enjolras again.

“He has agreed to speak to his friend’s wife, and if she agrees, to ask his friend to help us,” Enjolras explained, interpreting his look as a question.

Evidently he had been correct to do so, because Feuilly nodded in response. “I am glad you came around to our view.”

Enjolras felt his mouth twist. “I would not say he did any such thing.”

“Say, rather, that we found a solution that satisfied both of our views,” Prouvaire said diplomatically.

Feuilly frowned. “I do not understand you,” he said.

“No,” Prouvaire sighed, “I can see that. You would throw a man overboard if it meant saving the ship. And I understand your thinking, but I cannot adopt it. You assume the worth of the ship is self-evident, while the worth of the man must be justified by his value to the ship. But what is the ship worth, if it risks nothing for its sailors? If it only views its crew in terms of expediency?”

“We are hardly throwing anyone overboard,” Feuilly said dryly.

Prouvaire blushed. “Perhaps I am overdramatic, but you understand my argument nonetheless.”

“The good must be innocent,” Combeferre said, as Enjolras had heard him say many times before. “Or at least, as innocent as it can be.”

“Perhaps,” said Prouvaire, “but that is not quite what I mean. I do not object to bloodshed, though I mourn it. The destruction of the transgressors and sinners must come before we reach that happy day when nation shall no longer lift sword against nation.”

“That would be a happy day indeed,” Feuilly said, “but then, what _do_ you object to?”

“Oh, heartlessness, I suppose. A reduction of individual men and women to mere tools. André Chénier may have been a monarchist, but he was a poet first, and the Revolution should have honored that. What was the Revolution for, if not the freedom of art?”

“Many things. Liberty. Equality. Fraternity,” Enjolras said, suppressing a smile.

“To what end?” returned Prouvaire. “To allow each person to think freely, feel freely, pray freely, and create freely. Those who would sing should not prey upon other singers, like the swallow and the cicada.”

Enjolras guessed this was a reference to something, as Combeferre smiled as if in recognition, but he had no idea what, and was prevented from asking by the appearance of Matelote, informing them that the Corinthe was closing early, and that they had to leave.

“Let us see if anyone is at the Musain,” said Combeferre.

Outside the Musain they found Bahorel, Grantaire, Joly, Bossuet and Courfeyrac, all looking extremely irritated.

“The back room is…occupied,” said Joly.

“Stolen,” Courfeyrac corrected, pouting. “Invaded. Infested.”

Feuilly raised his eyebrows. “By whom?”

“Theology students,” said Bossuet, shuddering. “We should look into some arrangement to reserve it regularly. It is intolerable, to be so dislodged simply because they got there first, as if chronology determines right.”

“An injustice indeed,” Enjolras said, keeping his face straight.

“Where shall we go?” Joly looked around, pointing. “There’s that place over there—”

“It is awful. I’ve been there many times because the waitress is lovely, but their liquor is a disgrace.” Grantaire shook his head. “Unless you feel like taking a fiacre somewhere, we should just go to Combeferre’s apartment. It is the closest—well, him and Enjolras both, but Combeferre has wine—and you don’t mind, do you, Combeferre?”

“Not at all,” Combeferre murmured.

When they arrived, they crowded into Combeferre’s small room, awkwardly piling on the bed, the one chair, the desk and the floor. Courfeyrac flopped on the bed so his torso fell across Enjolras’s and Combeferre’s laps. Combeferre gave him a magnificent glare, which Courfeyrac in turn magnificently ignored.

Prouvaire approached the skeleton propped in the corner of the room with an expression of startled delight. “Is that a _real_ skeleton?”

“Yes,” Combeferre said, obviously surprised, as well he might be, being accustomed to mockery from Courfeyrac and Bossuet on the subject of the skeleton, rather than anything resembling the bright curiosity reflected in Prouvaire’s voice and smile.

“Does he have a name?” Prouvaire grasped the skeleton’s jaw, making it open and close.

“It’s a pile of bones, not a pet,” said Bahorel, amused.

“She,” said Combeferre. “It is a female skeleton.”

“Really?” Bossuet went over to stand in front of the skeleton, scrutinizing it. “How can you tell?”

“The pelvis is broader than a man’s would be,” said Courfeyrac, still sprawled over Enjolras and Combeferre. “What?” he said, when everyone turned to look at him. “Combeferre is not the only student of anatomy in the room, nor is the medical school the only place where one might learn that most useful subject.”

“Combeferre, there is something vaguely depraved about keeping a female skeleton in your bedroom,” said Bossuet. Combeferre reddened, and Enjolras glared at Bossuet, thinking perhaps he had gone too far in needling Combeferre, but Bossuet disregarded blush and glare alike. “I approve. I approve entirely.”

Courfeyrac cut in with a smile. “Jehan, I can assure you she does not have a name. Combeferre is much too cold and unromantic to give her such a courtesy, the devil.” This last was said with a teasing pull on Combeferre’s cravat. “Let us name her now. Perhaps, as fervent patriots, we should call her Marianne.”

“I see nothing patriotic about comparing Marianne to a lifeless skeleton,” Enjolras objected, half-seriously.

“True, very true,” said Bossuet. “I vote to name this most excellent skeleton Madame Blondeau. She equals our esteemed law professor in vim, in wit, in vigor and vivacity, and is perhaps his superior in charm. There can be no insult in comparing Madame Blondeau to an assemblage of bones; indeed, if there is such a woman, and if she be living, then the poor thing must constantly envy the bodies rotting in the ground, for there may be worse fates than marriage to Blondeau, but I can imagine none more tedious. No, this skeleton is Madame Blondeau, and she is very fit for the title.”

Prouvaire took the newly christened Madame Blondeau’s bony hand in his slender one, and bowed over it in an exaggeratedly courtly gesture. Then he swept the skeleton into his arms and began to waltz it around Combeferre’s room.

Courfeyrac, Grantaire, Joly and Bossuet applauded, as Prouvaire gracefully turned and twirled. Bossuet began to hum loudly in accompaniment to the dance.

“Take care not to make it fall apart,” Combeferre warned. “The screws holding the bones together are rusty, and not as tight as I would like.”

“Yes, anyone who breaks Madame Blondeau must replace her,” chuckled Bahorel.

Enjolras, his lips twitching, said, “There is a disturbing ambiguity in how you phrased that, Bahorel. Do you mean that anyone who breaks it must procure another skeleton, or that anyone who breaks it will, as punishment, _become_ the next skeleton?”

Bahorel’s chuckle deepened into a full guffaw. “What an appallingly perverse thing to say,” he said, ruffling Enjolras’s hair. “Clearly my fine example is having its effect on you.”

Courfeyrac rose to interrupt Prouvaire’s dance, taking Mme Blondeau into his arms—and, as soon as he did so, the skeleton’s arm fell off, followed by both of its legs.

The skull, meanwhile, wobbled dangerously on the neck.

“It was Jehan’s fault!” Courfeyrac hastily pointed the finger at their new friend in response to Combeferre’s stern look. “He was dancing with her too roughly—”

“Oh, come now!” Prouvaire objected. “I know how to dance with a lady, and roughness does not enter the picture. It was your fault, Courfeyrac, for dragging her from my arms like a graceless, uncouth—” Prouvaire struggled for a moment to find an epithet that would be scornful enough, and finally settled on, “Aristocrat,” with an air of triumph.

“So you assail me with my particle, do you?” Courfeyrac demanded, putting his hand over his heart in mock-outrage.

“I did not even know you had a particle,” said Prouvaire.

“ _Ça ira_ ,” Bahorel said cheerfully. “ _Les aristocrates à la lanterne._ ”

“You do not have _droit du seigneur_ over skeletons, Courfeyrac,” snickered Grantaire.

Courfeyrac promptly accused Grantaire of having illicit relations with his mother, and the conversation would have devolved into a series of regressively more obscene insults, had Combeferre not cleared his throat with great emphasis.

“We will put her back together,” Courfeyrac said meekly.

Prouvaire held up a bit of rusted metal. “We can’t. The screw broke. Sorry, Combeferre.”

“It is not your fault,” Combeferre said, making it plain with a look at Courfeyrac just whose fault he thought it was.

“Courfeyrac did nothing wrong,” Enjolras said. “He was simply unlucky that the skeleton came apart at that precise moment.”

“See, Enjolras defends me,” Courfeyrac said, with all the smugness of a child who has wheedled his mother into taking his part against his father.

Combeferre, uncompromising, said, “Just because Enjolras indulges your antics doesn’t mean that I will, especially if they cause bodily harm to my skeleton.”

“Come now, Combeferre, you cannot know what exactly made Mme Blondeau come apart,” Prouvaire said, with a wide and gentle smile, “and if there is doubt about Courfeyrac’s guilt, you must let him go without punishment. Athena said as much to the Furies, when they were pursuing Orestes. If the Greeks knew this even in their time, surely you can be no less humane today.”

“A fine speech,” Joly said. “If you can defend even Courfeyrac, Prouvaire, then you’ll make an excellent lawyer indeed.”

“You take that back,” said Bahorel. “Jehan deserves no such insult.”

“There is little point in being a lawyer in this world,” Prouvaire said, looking out the window. “When the laws themselves are so unjust, what use is it to quibble and negotiate within them?”

“Some use, surely,” Combeferre said. “A little justice is better than none.”

“Unless people mistake it for complete justice, yes,” said Enjolras, almost out of habit, like an actor reciting his lines in a play—he and Combeferre had had this particular discussion before.

“Some use, but not enough for me.” Prouvaire looked out the window again. “I cannot be enthusiastic about what I study until it becomes more like what it should be, until…”

“I could not be enthusiastic about it even then,” Courfeyrac said, nudging Feuilly over and squeezing between him and Enjolras on the bed. “I suspect that even in our republican utopia, legal tomes will still be drier than dust, billiards will still be more attractive than study, and Blondeau will still be an insufferable ass.”

“That last is probably a law of nature,” Bossuet agreed, “as unalterable as the principles of mathematics.”

“You never know,” Feuilly said, with a flash of humor. “In the Republic, perhaps your Blondeau will have a change of heart, liberated from the constraints that make him so annoying to you all today. Perhaps he will become a human being instead of a skeleton’s proper mate.”

“Perhaps he will give up the teaching of law and become an amiable loafer instead,” Grantaire said, pushing at Joly to make more space for himself.

“Anything would be possible in a world where all are free and equal,” Enjolras said dryly.

Prouvaire turned from the window, facing Enjolras, Combeferre, Courfeyrac and Feuilly. Outside, a cloud shifted, unmasking the sun. The pale rays struck the back of Prouvaire’s head, giving him the semblance of a halo. “Yes, anything. An endless sequence of maybes, some wretched, some glorious. It’s an awful and marvelous thing, is it not, to contemplate the future?”


End file.
